Incorporated: 1986 as Imagine Films Entertainment
NAIC: 512110 Motion Picture and Video Production; 512191 Teleproduction and Other Postproduction Services
SIC: 7812 Motion Picture & Video Production; 7819 Services Allied to Motion Pictures
Imagine Entertainment is an entertainment production company that produces feature films and television programs. The company is led by Brian Grazer, a producer, and Ron Howard, a director, who have created more than 50 feature films and dozens of television programs. Among the most notable films produced and directed by the Grazer-Howard tandem are Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind, and The Da Vinci Code. The company's television business is operated through Imagine TV, which has produced series such as 24, Arrested Development, and The Quintuplets. Imagine Entertainment relies on Universal Pictures to distribute its films and for production money to develop its films.
Origins
The combination of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard represented a potent force in the entertainment industry, uniting two individuals with complementary talents that generated nearly $13 billion in revenue during their first 20 years working together. The partnership was formed after their careers crossed paths in 1980. Grazer was just beginning to assert himself as a producer. Howard was making the transition from actor to director. Imagine Entertainment, the embodiment of their collaboration, became the banner under which their careers progressed, an entity whose financial success reflected the commercial appeal of Grazer's work as a producer and Howard's contributions as a director.
Grazer, a Los Angeles native, did not jump into the entertainment industry immediately. He first set out to get a law degree, enrolling at the University of Southern California's law school before he decided to drop out at age 21 in 1972. His next move, securing a job at Warner Bros. as a legal intern, provided entry into Hollywood, and from that point forward Grazer never deviated from his goal of distinguishing himself in the entertainment industry. He was driven, passionate about the industry, making a promise to himself that every day he would meet one new person involved in the business. It was a promise he honored at the start of his career and after he had achieved success. The promise reflected a commitment to networking, a valuable attribute for a Hollywood producer, and it reflected his unflagging curiosity. Grazer, years after he established himself in the film and television industry, had an assistant under contract at Imagine Entertainment who cajoled other distinguished individuals from an array of backgrounds to sit down with Grazer once a week for a conversation. The weekly conversations, held with artists, athletes, scientists, and progressive thinkers of all sorts, fed his intellect and provided ideas for future projects. After meeting with Sheldon Glashow, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, Grazer, in a July 12, 2004, interview with Variety, mentioned he thought, "There's a good movie in particle accelerators."
Before Grazer became the type of executive who required the services of a cultural attaché, he made his mark as a producer. He began his career in television, joining Edgar J. Scherick Associates after leaving Warner Bros. He earned his first producer credits in 1978 on two made-for-television movies, Zuma Beach, and Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Next, in 1980, he signed a development and production deal with Paramount Pictures to create and to produce pilot episodes for television. While working for Paramount, Grazer was introduced to Ron Howard, who was nearing the end of his six-year run as the star of the hit television show Happy Days.
Ron Howard made his professional debut as an actor in 1955 at the age of 18 months, appearing on stage with his parents Rance and Jean Howard. A prolific career as a child actor followed, including roles in feature films The Music Man and The Courtship of Eddie's Father, but Howard was best known for his role as "Opie" on The Andy Griffith Show, which aired between 1960 and 1968. As a young adult, Howard starred in George Lucas's American Graffiti, released in 1973, and in the John Wayne film The Shootist, released in 1976, but again his most memorable role was on television, as "Richie Cunningham" on Happy Days. Before leaving the enormously popular television program, Howard began to demonstrate his preference for being behind the camera rather than in front of it. He made his directorial debut in 1977 with Grand Theft Auto, a feature film he cowrote with his father. By the time he met Grazer three years later, Howard was more interested in working as a director than as an actor, a career he would pursue with Grazer at his side.
There was a six-year gap between the time Grazer and Howard first met and the founding of Imagine Entertainment, but the years did not pass by insignificantly. Howard, the aspiring director, and Grazer, the aspiring producer, established they could work together during the period, collaborating for the first time on the 1982 comedy Night Shift, which marked Howard's first commercial success as a director and Grazer's first commercial success as a producer. They eclipsed their efforts two years later with Splash, a romantic comedy made for Walt Disney Pictures that became the studio's most successful live-action feature film since the 1964 release of Mary Poppins. The film also garnered Grazer an Oscar nomination for original screenplay. The two films confirmed Howard as a director and Grazer as a producer, sparking demand for their respective talents. Howard directed Cocoon in 1985, a fantasy that enjoyed box-office success and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Grazer spent the year producing a teenage comedy, Real Genius, and another comedy, Spies Like Us, directed by John Landis. The following year, the two friends--Grazer, 34 years old, Howard, 32 years old--reunited professionally and as business partners, forming their own production company, an entity they based in Century City, California, and initially named Imagine Films Entertainment.
1986-93: A Disdain for the Public Sector
Within months of forming their company, Grazer and Howard converted to public ownership. They guided Imagine Films Entertainment through an initial public offering (IPO) of stock in July 1986, selling 1.7 million shares at $8 per share. On the first day of trading, shares in the company shot up to $18.25 per share, closing at the end of the first week at $15.25 per share. The substantial increase in the stock's value was a cause for celebration, one that no doubt pleased Grazer and Howard as they set out, but soon the conversion to public ownership proved to be a nightmare for the two entrepreneurs, a decision they deeply regretted having made. Imagine Films Entertainment was saddled with debilitating overhead expenses after the IPO and neither Grazer nor Howard enjoyed the rigors of operating a publicly held company, disgruntled, according to the October 23, 2000, issue of Variety, by "balance-sheet preoccupations and shareholder handholding." By the early 1990s, displeasure at the arrangement intensified. The company's television division suffered fatal blows by financial losses incurred by the television version of Parenthood and by My Talk Show, which together lost roughly $10 million. The situation became dire, with the television arm of the company shutting down, and Grazer and Howard contemplating leaving Imagine Films Entertainment, but in 1993 they opted for another way out of the mess. The pair spent $23.5 million to return their production company to private ownership and renamed the company Imagine Entertainment.
Although the period in the public spotlight proved to be a debacle, the years were not entirely wasted. The partnership between Grazer and Howard matured, yielding its own trademark style of film that found receptive audiences worldwide. Their company produced Parenthood (1989), Kindergarten Cop (1990), and Problem Child 2 (1991), reflecting the pair's penchant for lighthearted comedies. "My pictures are usually bigger-budget ones," Grazer explained in a June 15, 1998, interview with Variety, "conceptual to draw the widest possible audience, contain big move stars, and spring from one-sentence ideas. They are easily graspable and personified through a familiar star." The company's formative years also included one of the most important events in its history, a distribution agreement signed with Universal Pictures during its first year of business. The relationship between the two companies was a long-lasting partnership, an arrangement that became particularly crucial to Imagine Entertainment's operation as a privately owned company. The company relied heavily on Universal, freeing Grazer and Howard from the responsibility of securing financing. Universal, in turn, relied on Imagine Entertainment to fill a large portion of its production slate, a responsibility gladly accepted by Grazer and Howard.
Imagine Entertainment cemented its reputation during the 1990s, thriving as a privately owned company that depended on the creative output of its co-chief executive officers, Grazer and Howard. The company produced more than a dozen feature films between 1993 and 2000, scoring its greatest success with the 1995 release of Apollo 13, which garnered Howard his first Oscar nomination for Best Director. Films such as Sgt. Bilko (1996), The Nutty Professor (1996), and Liar, Liar (1997) became part of Imagine Entertainment's traditional fare of comedies geared to attract large audiences, an approach Universal applauded by renewing its distribution agreement with the company. Between 1986 and 1998, Imagine Entertainment produced 38 feature films that grossed more than $3 billion, making it one of the most successful studios in Hollywood. The company also revived its television division, Imagine TV, in 1997. Grazer and Howard approached Universal about backing the effort, but Disney stepped in with a generous financial offer. Within a year, four broadcasting networks ordered Imagine TV-produced series and three of five new Disney programs were coproductions with Imagine TV. By the end of the decade, the company's confidence was on display for all to see. Imagine Entertainment began advertising itself, not its productions, paying for a 60-second commercial aired during the Super Bowl in 1999 that included images from the company's films and a narrator intoning, "Throughout the years, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment have made you laugh and touched your heart." Previously, only Disney had promoted itself as a brand name.
Imagine Entertainment in the 21st Century
Imagine Entertainment, a reflection of the creative pursuits of its two leaders, began moving in a different direction as it entered the 21st century. The catalyst for the change appeared to be the 2001 release of A Beautiful Mind, which earned Howard his first Oscar for Best Director, and the Grazer-produced The Cat in the Hat, which failed at the box office. Grazer and Howard began to exhibit less interest in their formula for box-office success--"It's harder to make big comedies that people respect," Grazer said in a July 12, 2004, interview with Variety--and gravitated toward projects that gave their company a more eclectic portfolio. In 2002, the company produced 8 Mile, a film about the rise of rapper Eminem. In 2004, the company produced Inside Deep Throat, a documentary about the cultural effect of the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat.
The shift in creative orientation did nothing to tarnish the luster exuded by Imagine Entertainment. By 2007, the production company had produced more than 50 feature films that grossed roughly $12.6 billion worldwide. A film version of its hit television series 24, slated for release in 2009, pointed to the success of its television division. Universal renewed its distribution agreement in 2007 through 2013, making the pact between the two companies the longest in the history of Universal. The distribution agreement left Grazer and Howard free to focus on their development projects, more than a dozen of which were underway as the company celebrated its 21st anniversary. The Imagine Entertainment banner, seen by moviegoers worldwide for two decades, promised to be a familiar sight for years to come.
Principal Subsidiaries
Imagine TV.
Principal Competitors
Spyglass Entertainment Group, LLC; Revolution Studios Inc.; Regency Enterprises; Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.
Further Reading
Cole, Benjamin Mark, "Imagine Films Is November's Big Winner on Wall Street," Los Angeles Business Journal, December 10, 1990, p. 43.
DiOrio, Carl, "Just Imagine: U Tie Is Vintage H'Wood," Variety, October 23, 2000, p. 9.
Fleming, Michael, "Universal Appeal: Imagine, Studio Reup in Five-Year Deal," Daily Variety, July 13, 2007, p. 1.
Friedman, Wayne, "New Movie Ads Build Brand of Imagine Studio," Advertising Age, February 8, 1999, p. 18.
Hontz, Jenny, "Imagine Revs Twin Engines," Variety, July 13, 1998, p. 1.
Roberts, Jerry, "Grazer Gets It," Variety, June 15, 1998, p. 46.
"Splash in the Stock Market," Time, August 4, 1986, p. 56.
— Jeffrey L. Covell
