Cinema International Corporation (CIC) was a film distribution company started by
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
and
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
in the early 1970s to distribute the two studios' films outside the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
– it even operated in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
before it was considered part of the "domestic" market. During the 1970s, CIC was the "most important agent of overseas distribution" for American films.
In 1981, CIC merged with United Artists' international units and became
United International Pictures
United International Pictures (UIP) is a joint venture of Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures that distributes their films outside the United States and Canada. UIP also had international distribution rights to certain Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer an ...
. The formation of CIC, and the profit-sharing arrangement that made it work, has been described as the product of "revolutionary thinking".
Overview
Paramount
Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to:
Entertainment and music companies
* Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...
's early history with
MCA dates back to the 1950s, when part of its talent pool worked for Paramount Pictures;
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
was among the best known. In 1958, MCA purchased the Paramount sound feature film library from 1929 to 1949. In 1962, MCA purchased
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
. In 1966,
Gulf+Western
Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. (stylized as Gulf+Western) was an American conglomerate. Originally, the company focused on manufacturing and resource extraction. Beginning in 1966, and continuing throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the company ...
purchased Paramount.
Paramount had sought to merge its international operations with
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
in the late 1960s to save the expenses of releasing films internationally, as they felt the costs of international distribution by individual companies was insufficiently profitable to be sustained, but their attempt did not succeed.
In February 1970, Gulf+Western chairman
Charles Bludhorn
Charles George Bluhdorn (born Karl Georg Blühdorn; September 20, 1926 – February 19, 1983) was an Austrian-born American industrialist.
Early life
Bluhdorn was born in Vienna, Austria, to an Austrian Jewish mother Rosa Fuchs and father Pau ...
was on a flight with Henri Michaud, the president of Paramount International, who suggested that they contact
Lew Wasserman
Lewis Robert Wasserman (March 22, 1913 – June 3, 2002) was an American talent agent and studio executive, described as "the last of the legendary movie moguls" and "arguably the most powerful and influential Hollywood titan in the four decades ...
, chairman of MCA-Universal, on arrival in Los Angeles. Bludhorn and Wasserman met for lunch that day and agreed to merge their international operations into a new company. Cinema International Corporation (CIC) was created July 1, 1971, incorporated in the Netherlands for tax purposes, but with its head office in London. Michaud and Arthur Abeles became co-chairmen.
The original scope of distribution for CIC consisted of Europe, South America and South Africa.
In November 1973,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded o ...
closed down its distribution offices and became a partner in CIC, which took over international distribution for MGM's films for an initial ten-year period;
[ this made CIC a fifty-percent shareholder of South Africa's Film Trust, an owner-operator of theaters,] which persisted into 1976, when Film Trust bought its way out of the partnership. The theater operating concern co-owned by CIC and Film Trust was called Cinitrust. This had a secondary effect of supporting Paramount and Universal in expanding beyond their singular association in South Africa with Ster. By 1975, CIC was operating in forty-seven countries, and had distribution rights to about forty percent of Hollywood's output. By 1976, Warner Bros. International began working with CIC on international distribution, including in South Africa. Beyond distribution, CIC had ventures with MGM and Warner Bros. International (CIC-MGM and CIC-Warner) for the operation of cinemas outside the United States.
CIC also entered the home video market by forming CIC Video
CIC Video was a home video distributor, established in 1980, owned by Cinema International Corporation (the forerunner of United International Pictures), and operated in some countries (such as United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Japan, France, Ge ...
, which distributed Paramount and Universal titles on video worldwide. MGM however, had its own video unit, which later became a joint venture with CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
as MGM/CBS Home Video (later known as MGM/UA Home Video, which was later renamed MGM Home Entertainment).
In 1981, MGM purchased United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...
, but could not drop out of the CIC venture to merge with UA's overseas operations. However, with future film productions from both names being released domestically through the MGM/UA Entertainment plate, CIC decided to merge with UA's international units and reformed as United International Pictures
United International Pictures (UIP) is a joint venture of Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures that distributes their films outside the United States and Canada. UIP also had international distribution rights to certain Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer an ...
on November 1. By this time, CIC was one of the two largest distribution companies in the British Isles, the other being Columbia-EMI-Warner Distributors.
The CIC name lived on in its video division, which became directly managed as a joint venture of Paramount Home Video
Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, and originally Paramount Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global.
The division oversees PPC's home entertainme ...
and MCA Videocassette, Inc. (later MCA Home Video and MCA/Universal Home Video). CIC Video survived until 1999, when Universal purchased PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (formerly known as PolyGram Films and PolyGram Pictures or simply PFE) was a British film studio founded in 1979 which became a European competitor to Hollywood, but was eventually sold to Seagram Company Ltd. in 1 ...
and reorganized its video division under the Universal name, while Paramount took over full ownership of CIC Video and merged it under its own video division.
CIC also served as the theatrical distributor of Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
films in some territories such as Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
and in Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
(under the CIC-Fox joint-venture) during the 1970s to mid-1980s, when it changed its corporate name to UIP.
Controversy
Practices conducted through CIC have come to be considered anti-competitive and likely would have run afoul of anti-trust laws if conducted in the United States.[
----Note: this source contains an incorrect start date for the company: 1977.]
CIC made headlines in 2012 because both Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures denied ownership of director William Friedkin
William "Billy" Friedkin (born August 29, 1935)Biskind, p. 200. is an American film and television director, producer and screenwriter closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in t ...
's film, '' Sorcerer.'' The studios claimed they transferred ownership to CIC, which later dissolved, causing the rights to be in limbo. In April 2012, Friedkin sued the studios to discover who owned the domestic theatrical rights and to capture any royalty payments from VHS and DVD releases. At one point, a court date for March 2013 was set if the parties could not reach a settlement. However, it was exactly that month that Friedkin revealed that he had dropped his lawsuit against Universal and Paramount, and that he and a "major studio" were involved in the creation of a new, recolored digital print of ''Sorcerer'', to be screened at the Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...
and to receive a Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
release:
See also
* Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
References and notes
External links
Listing at Companies House
{{Authority control
Mass media companies disestablished in 1981
Film distributors of the United States
Universal Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Mass media companies established in 1970
1970 establishments in the United States
American companies disestablished in 1981
American companies established in 1970