Castle Rock Entertainment is a film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn. Originally an independent company, today, it is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which in turn is a unit of Time Warner.
Company
Reiner named the company in honor of the fictional Maine town from the book The Dead Zone written by Stephen King (which was named after the fictional Castle Rock in Lord of the Flies), after the success of the film Stand by Me, which was based on The Body, a novella by King. The first major Castle Rock release was When Harry Met Sally… (The name was first used, however, on the film Winter People).
The company was backed by Columbia Pictures and Nelson Entertainment. Nelson was primarily interested because of some of the founders' relations with the company. Horn and Shafer previously were with Embassy Pictures; Nelson later acquired that company's library. Reiner filmed two successful films for Embassy, This is Spinal Tap and The Sure Thing. Nelson was also involved with the home video distribution of Reiner's The Princess Bride which Reiner also co-produced with Scheinman (although not a Castle Rock production). Nelson funded Castle Rock's films and also distributed the films on video in North American markets, and handled international theatrical distribution, while Columbia had domestic distribution rights. Some of Nelson's holdings were later acquired by New Line Cinema, which took over Nelson's duty. Columbia, shortly after the company's formation, thereafter had to re-invest with a substantial change in terms when accumulated losses exhausted its initial funding.
Distribution
Columbia handled Castle Rock films' distribution domestically up until 1999.
On August 1993, Ted Turner agreed to acquire Castle Rock, along with co-financing partner New Line Cinema. Turner Broadcasting System eventually merged into Time Warner in 1996.
In 1999, Warner Bros. and Universal assumed distribution rights beginning with The Green Mile (WB handled domestic distribution, while Universal handled the foreign rights). Soon after, Universal backed out of their contract (and later gave international rights to The Green Mile back to WB), WB assumed full distribution of all Castle Rock films worldwide. However, a few post-1998 films still had distribution by Columbia or a related company, such as Envy (distributed by Columbia outside the US, as DreamWorks had American rights), or the 2007 remake of Sleuth (through the Sony Pictures Classics division in North America; Paramount Pictures handled distribution in a few other English-speaking countries). Presumably, WB passed on distributing these films.
In several international markets in the mid-1990s, Columbia did not distribute Castle Rock films theatrically. In Germany, they distributed their own films via a joint venture between them, Concorde Filmverleih, and Turner Pictures (a subsidiary of Castle Rock's then-parent company Turner Entertainment). Many of the company's early films were distributed by Palace Pictures in the United Kingdom, under license from Nelson.
Castle Rock's most recent productions are the aforementioned The Polar Express (2004), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005), and Music and Lyrics (2007).
The Castle Rock Entertainment logo music was composed by Marc Shaiman.
Rights changes
Pre-1994
The ancillary rights to all Castle Rock films prior to 1994 (with the exception of co-productions with Columbia such as In the Line of Fire and A Few Good Men) were originally held by New Line; the company later sold off the Nelson and Castle Rock libraries to PolyGram. These films are now part of the pre-1996 PolyGram Filmed Entertainment library owned by MGM. Warner Bros., however, holds some partial rights to these films, including television rights to select titles that in turn include the films co-financed by Nelson (notably excluding the co-productions with Columbia which are owned by Sony Pictures Television)
Theatrical distribution of the pre-1994 Castle Rock library came full circle in 2005, when MGM was sold to a Sony-led partnership. As Sony owns Columbia (through Sony Pictures Entertainment), that studio has assumed theatrical distribution rights to the MGM-owned features. SPE also handled TV and video distribution for a short time. In 2006, MGM returned to self-distribution on TV, and switched video distribution to 20th Century Fox.
1994 onward
The 1994-99 Castle Rock films (except the US rights to The Story of Us and The Last Days of Disco, along with the international rights to The American President, all of which are held by Universal) are now part of WB's library, although some have ancillary rights held by WB's Turner Entertainment division.
As aforementioned, WB has re-acquired the international rights to The Green Mile from Universal. However, also as aforementioned, three other films with partial ownership by Universal were not part of the deal, and Universal still owns some interest in these films.
Warner also owns the 1990 film The Spirit of '76, since Nelson Entertainment did not have a role in the film's production.
Selected films
The original
Castle Rock Entertainment logo used from
1989 to
1994 which is seen after Seasons 1-5 of
Seinfeld.
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Pre-1994
- Films co-financed by either Nelson or New Line are now owned by MGM.
Co-financed by Nelson Entertainment
No other co-financing
1994-1998
- These films are now owned by Castle Rock themselves under WB/Turner, except as indicated
Post-1998
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Distributed by New Line Cinema
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Television shows
Trivia
New Line Cinema and Castle Rock Entertainment had recently collaborated on Fracture, which opened April 20, 2007; their first joint venture since the mid-1990s before both companies were bought by Turner. Also, Columbia Pictures reunited with Castle Rock Entertainment on the 2009 film Did You Hear About The Morgans?, which is scheduled to release in December 2009. Castle Rock has produced unknown tv series listed above.
External links
