Orion Pictures

Orion Pictures Corporation was a American movie production company, formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. Pictures and three former top-level executives of United Artists. UA co-chairmen Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin along with chief executive officer Eric Pleskow had resigned after disputes with UA's then parent, Transamerica. Orion's first films included 10, Time After Time, Caddyshack, Arthur, Sharkey's Machine, Monty Python's Life of Brian, and A Little Romance.

In 1982, Orion merged with Filmways, Inc. (which had produced well-remembered TV shows in the late 1960s, such as The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mister Ed and The Addams Family, but was a second-string studio by the late 1970s and mainly interesting for its ownership of American International Pictures), and became an independent company, in addition to entering television production and distribution. It also introduced a new logo, featuring an animated depiction of the Orion star constellation. During the 1980s, its output included Woody Allen films, Hollywood blockbusters such as the first Terminator film and the RoboCop films, and Academy Award winners such as Amadeus and Platoon. Dances With Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs would also earn many Academy Awards in the early 1990s for Orion. In 1986, billionaire John Kluge invested in the company as a favor to Krim, and by 1988 his Metromedia organization had become majority owner.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Orion had severe financial problems, and declared bankruptcy in 1992. The studio entered into a profit sharing deal to secure distribution of the film version of The Addams Family that meant it saw little of the profit while the company's other lucrative properties such as the Terminator franchise went to other studios (The Addams Family would eventually be distributed by Paramount Pictures). Silence of the Lambs was almost passed on due to lack of funding, and several other projects in production at the time, such as Car 54 Where Are You? and Clifford, had their release delayed by three years (from 1991 to 1994) because of the bankruptcy filing. Orion was eventually able to exit bankruptcy in 1996, but few of the films released during the four years under bankruptcy protection made much of a critical or commercial impact.

As a result of Orion's financial troubles, its television division was sold to ABC and became ABC Productions (which produced the television series The Commish and My So-Called Life), although Orion continued to retain ownership of all its television output up to the time of the bankruptcy. Coincidentally, ABC held the broadcast rights to most of Orion's theatrical library during the bankruptcy period.

Between 1996 and 1997, Orion Pictures introduced Orion Classics. The subsidiary presented classic movies from American International Pictures and Filmways in addition to their own in-house specialty films.

In 1997, Metromedia sold Orion (as well as The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Motion Picture Corporation of America) to MGM, with the deal finalized in late 1998 (Orion Classics was folded into United Artists). Orion remains an in-name-only subsidiary of MGM, and all Orion releases (mostly of the AIP and Filmways backlogs, as well as their own post-1982 library, with the exception of two Saul Zaentz films, The Unbearable Lightness of Being & Amadeus (both of which are now owned by Warner Bros.), and the television output originally produced under the Orion name) now bear the MGM name, though in most cases, the 1980s Orion logo is retained (or added on, in the case of the Filmways and AIP libraries). In 2005, the Orion library became part of the Sony/Comcast consortium which bought the MGM studio. Meanwhile, most ancillary rights to Orion's back catalog from the 1978-1982 joint venture period remains under the control of Time Warner.

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