Anchor Bay Entertainment


Anchor Bay Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company owned by Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz. The company markets and releases "new release genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases".
Originally founded in 1995 from a merger between two companies, Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment, Anchor Bay first operated as a home entertainment distributor, which would later be acquired in 2003 by Starz Distribution, a then-subsidiary of Lionsgate. Anchor Bay Entertainment marketed and released feature films, television series, television specials and short films on DVD and Blu-ray. In 2004, Anchor Bay agreed to have its releases distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and renewed their deal in 2011. In 2017, Lionsgate folded Anchor Bay Entertainment into Lionsgate Home Entertainment. The company would later see a revival in 2024 under new owners Zambeck and Katz, after the two acquired the rights to the Anchor Bay name.

History

Original company

The first incarnation of Anchor Bay Entertainment dates its origins back to two separate home video distributors: Video Treasures, formed in 1985, and Starmaker Entertainment, founded in 1988. Both companies sold budget items, including reissues of previously released home video programming, at discount prices.
Video Treasures started with public domain titles, and later made licensing deals with Color Systems Technology, Vestron Video, Heron Communications, Britt Allcroft, Trans World Entertainment, Regal Video, Virgin Vision, Hal Roach Studios, Video Communications Inc., Jerry Lewis Productions, and Orion Pictures, among others.
Starmaker's major distributions were films from the then-recently, out-of-business New World Pictures and programs previously licensed to New World Pictures' video division. The rights to these titles were secured in 1990. Viacom-produced programs and Saturday Night Live compilations were other notable Starmaker releases.
Both companies competed with each other for years. In January 1989, Video Treasures was acquired by the Handleman Company. In August 1991, Video Treasures acquired MNTEX Entertainment, a discount VHS distributor based in Prior Lake, Minnesota.
In June 1994, Starmaker Entertainment was acquired by Handleman as well. Eventually, both companies merged to form a new corporate umbrella: Anchor Bay Entertainment, in May 1995. Other budget home video and music labels became part of Anchor Bay, such as MNTEX Entertainment, Teal Entertainment, and Burbank Video, which were previously part of Video Treasures. Both the Video Treasures and Starmaker labels, along with the MNTEX and Burbank Video labels, were phased out a couple years later.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Anchor Bay specialized in the release of horror films, particularly cult films and slasher films from the 1970s and 1980s. One of its first releases was Prom Night. It also released Halloween, Hellraiser, and many others, leading the home video market for obscure and vintage horror films.
In October 2000, Anchor Bay Entertainment expanded to the United Kingdom, the first non-North American country to release film and TV on home media.
In 2003, Handleman sold Anchor Bay to IDT Entertainment, at the time a newly-formed entertainment division of telecommunications company IDT Corporation. On February 4, 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against two former employees of Anchor Bay Entertainment, formerly owned by Handleman. The SEC's complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, claims that the two employees caused the company to enter into a two million-dollar fraudulent transactions. The transactions involved the purported sale of slow-moving or obsolete inventory to business partners doubled with secret buy-back provisions. The inventory included worthless video boxes and sleeves and DVDs for films. Handleman subsequently restated its financial statements to correct these accounting errors.
In 2004, it signed a licensing agreement with Stephen J. Cannell Productions to release its library on DVD. In 2005, it signed a deal with The Carsey-Werner Company to release many television series on DVD. In 2006, it attempted an agreement with Ember Entertainment Group to release The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. on DVD, but it was prevented by a lawsuit from Warner Bros., who said it owned both series.
In 2006, Colorado-based Liberty Media, the owner of the digital cable/pay-TV network Starz, purchased IDT Entertainment from IDT Corporation and renamed as Starz Media.
In May 2007, Anchor Bay was renamed as Starz Home Entertainment. A month later, it was announced on June 19, 2007, that Starz Home Entertainment would begin releasing high-definition versions of its films exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In 2008, Starz Home Entertainment reverted to its original Anchor Bay name.
During the late 2000s, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment had a three-year deal with Anchor Bay Entertainment for worldwide DVD releases outside of North America, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
On January 4, 2011, Starz, LLC sold 25% of Starz Media to The Weinstein Company, resulting in Anchor Bay becoming the video distributor of films made by TWC and Dimension. Starz later bought back the Weinstein's stake in October 2015, with Anchor Bay continuing to release TWC and Dimension video releases.
In early 2015, Anchor Bay UK was bought from Starz by managing director Colin Lomax and renamed to Platform Entertainment. Kaleidoscope Film Distribution would acquire Platform in December 2016, with Manga Entertainment UK becoming a separate entity and operating on its own, which itself was eventually acquired by the anime company Funimation in 2019.
On June 30, 2016, Lionsgate agreed to acquire Anchor Bay's parent company Starz Inc. for $4.4 billion in cash and stock. The Starz/Lionsgate merger was completed on December 8, 2016. On August 29, 2017, Anchor Bay was folded into Lionsgate Home Entertainment. From August 30, 2017 to 2021, Anchor Bay's website remained online, but with all the links broken.

Revival

On February 15, 2024, Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz, co-founders of Umbrelic Entertainment, acquired the rights to the Anchor Bay Entertainment name from Lionsgate, with the two planning to relaunch the company. The new company will specialize in "genre films, undiscovered treasures, cult classics, and remastered catalog releases", with distribution being handled by MVD Entertainment Group. The puppet horror film Abruptio and documentary Dinner with Leatherface will be some of the label's first releases. The library of the original Anchor Bay incarnation was retained by Lionsgate.

Licensed content

Films

During its original incarnation in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Anchor Bay specialized in the release of horror and cult films, particularly those of the 1970s and 1980s. The company's first-ever DVD release was The Car in April 1997, followed by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark that August, and an extended cut of Dawn of the Dead in November 1997. The company's next release was Prom Night in February 1998.
It also released Halloween, Sleepaway Camp, Alice, Sweet Alice, The Hills Have Eyes, Suspiria, Maniac, the first three Hellraiser films, The Wicker Man, Silent Night, Deadly Night, Children of the Corn, The Beyond and several Lucio Fulci films. Some of these were given numbered limited edition releases which included multiple discs, information booklets and collectible tin cases. Many of these releases have since gone out of print and became sought-after collectibles.
Anchor Bay is also noted for the release of the Evil Dead film trilogy on DVD, in numerous editions. Army of Darkness for example, had been released in both a regular and limited edition set that featured the director's cut. Since then, the director's cut has been re-released on two occasions in addition to a two-disc "Boomstick Edition" of the film as well. Until Anchor Bay released The Evil Dead on VHS and DVD, it was previously unavailable on video from a major label.
Also among its more profitable releases has been George A. Romero's Living Dead series. Anchor Bay has distribution rights for the middle two films in the tetralogy: Dawn and Day, however, it has also distributed DVDs of the original, Night of the Living Dead, which is in the public domain. Like the Evil Dead trilogy, the Living Dead series has seen many editions on DVD. Dawn has itself seen several releases on DVD, the most extra feature-laden being the Ultimate Edition in late 2004. An Evil Dead 3-disc Ultimate Edition DVD was released in December 2007.