Castle Rock Entertainment

Not to be confused with Dark Castle Entertainment.

Castle Rock Entertainment

Type	Subsidiary of Warner Bros.
Industry	Film
Founded	1987
Founder(s)	Martin Shafer Rob Reiner Andrew Scheinman Glenn Padnick Alan Horn
Headquarters	United States
Products	Motion pictures
Services	Film production
Owner(s)	The Coca-Cola Company (1987) Columbia Pictures Entertainment (1987–1991) Sony Pictures Entertainment (1991–1993) Turner Broadcasting System (1993–1996) Time Warner (1996–2001, 2003–present) AOL Time Warner (2001–2003) Warner Bros. Entertainment (2004–present)
Parent	Warner Bros. Pictures
Website	www.lonestar-movie.com

Castle Rock Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn. 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 that serves as the setting of several stories by Stephen King (which was named after the fictional Castle Rock in Lord of the Flies), after the success of his film Stand by Me, which was based on The Body, a novella by King.

The company was originally backed by The Coca-Cola Company, the then-parent company of Columbia Pictures. Coke and the company's founders jointly owned a stake in the company. Months after the deal, Coke exited the entertainment business, succeeded by Columbia Pictures Entertainment (now Sony Pictures Entertainment).

In 1989, Castle Rock was supported by another backer, Group W, a subsidiary of Westinghouse. Castle Rock later struck a deal with Nelson Entertainment, the company that owned the domestic home video rights to Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, and The Princess Bride, to co-finance Castle Rock's films.

Under the deal, Nelson also distributed the films on video in North American markets, and handled international theatrical distribution, while Columbia, which Nelson forged a distribution deal with, would receive domestic theatrical 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.

Castle Rock has also produced several television shows, such as the successful sitcom Seinfeld and the animated sitcom Mission Hill.

Distribution

Columbia handled Castle Rock films' distribution domestically (and later worldwide) until 1999.

On August 1993, Ted Turner agreed to acquire Castle Rock, along with co-financing partner New Line Cinema. The sale was completed on December 25, 1993. Turner Broadcasting System eventually merged with 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 Broadcasting). Many of the company's early films were distributed by Palace Pictures in the United Kingdom, under license from Nelson.

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 and Castle Rock co-financed Did You Hear About The Morgans?, which was released on December 18, 2009.

Distribution changes

Castle Rock Entertainment owns the rights to nearly all of its films and television series, as they were copyrighted by the company (which is often shared by other companies on a few films). However, the distribution rights to these films have often shifted from company to company over the years.

Pre-1994

The distribution 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 distribution 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.

One pre-1994 Castle Rock film, The Spirit of '76, is also currently distributed by Warner since Nelson Entertainment did not have a role in the film's production.

1994 onward

The 1994-99 Castle Rock films (except the US distribution 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 division.

As aforementioned, WB has re-acquired the international distribution rights to The Green Mile from Universal. However, also as aforementioned, three other films with partial distribution by Universal were not part of the deal, and Universal still handles some interest in these films.

Selected films

The original Castle Rock Entertainment logo used from 1989 to 1994.

Title	Release Date
Winter People	April 14, 1989
When Harry Met Sally...	July 21, 1989
Lord of the Flies	March 16, 1990
Spirit of '76	October 12, 1990
Sibling Rivalry	October 26, 1990
Misery	November 30, 1990
City Slickers	June 7, 1991
Late for Dinner	September 20, 1991
Year of the Comet	April 24, 1992
Mr. Saturday Night	September 23, 1992
Honeymoon in Vegas	August 28, 1992
A Few Good Men	December 11, 1992
Amos & Andrew	March 5, 1993
In the Line of Fire	July 9, 1993
Needful Things	August 27, 1993
Malice	October 1, 1993
Josh and S.A.M.	November 24, 1993
City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold	June 10, 1994
Little Big League	June 29, 1994
North	July 22, 1994
Barcelona	July 29, 1994
The Shawshank Redemption	October 14, 1994
Before Sunrise	January 27, 1995
For Better or Worse	March 19, 1995
Dolores Claiborne	March 24, 1995
Forget Paris	May 19, 1995
Beyond Rangoon	August 25, 1995
The Run of the Country	September 22, 1995
The American President	November 17, 1995
Othello	December 15, 1995
Dracula: Dead and Loving It	December 22, 1995
A Midwinter's Tale	February 16, 1996
City Hall	February 16, 1996
Lone Star	June 21, 1996
Striptease	June 28, 1996
Alaska	August 14, 1996
The Spitfire Grill	August 23, 1996
Extreme Measures	September 27, 1996
Ghosts of Mississippi	December 20, 1996
Hamlet	December 25, 1996
Some Mother's Son	December 25, 1996
Waiting for Guffman	January 31, 1997
subUrbia	February 7, 1997
Absolute Power	February 14, 1997
Zero Effect	January 30, 1998
Palmetto	February 20, 1998
My Giant	April 10, 1998
Sour Grapes	April 17, 1998
The Last Days of Disco	May 29, 1998
Mickey Blue Eyes	August 20, 1999
The Story of Us	October 15, 1999
The Green Mile	December 10, 1999
Bait	September 15, 2000
Best in Show	September 29, 2000
Lost Souls	October 13, 2000
Proof of Life	December 8, 2000
Miss Congeniality	December 22, 2000
Hearts in Atlantis	September 28, 2001
The Majestic	December 21, 2001
Murder by Numbers	April 19, 2002
The Salton Sea	April 26, 2002
The Adventures of Pluto Nash	August 16, 2002
Two Weeks Notice	December 20, 2002
Kangaroo Jack	January 17, 2003
Dreamcatcher	March 21, 2003
A Mighty Wind	May 9, 2003
Envy	April 30, 2004
Before Sunset	July 2, 2004
The Polar Express	November 10, 2004
Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!	November 16, 2004
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous	March 24, 2005
For Your Consideration	November 22, 2006
Music and Lyrics	February 14, 2007
Fracture	April 20, 2007
In the Land of Women	April 20, 2007
No Reservations	July 27, 2007
Michael Clayton	October 12, 2007
Sleuth	October 12, 2007
Chaos Theory	April 11, 2008
Did You Hear About the Morgans?	December 18, 2009
Flipped	August 6, 2010
Faster	November 24, 2010
Friends with Benefits	July 22, 2011
The Magic of Belle Isle	July 6, 2012
Before Midnight	May 24, 2013
Shapes:barbeuce	May 24, 2023 Television shows Heart & Soul (1988) Seinfeld (1989–1998) (Sony Pictures Television currently owns distribution rights) Partners in Life (1990) Morton & Hayes (1991) My Old School (1991) Please Watch the Jon Lovitz Special (1992) The Powers That Be (1992) (with ELP Communications and Columbia Pictures Television) Helicopters with Elvira (1993-1995) Thea (1993–1994) (Sony Pictures Television currently owns distribution rights) The Second Half (1993–1994) 704 Hauser (1994, pilot only) The Single Guy (1995–1997) The Lazarus Man (1996) Reunited (1998) The Army Show (1998) Mission Hill (1999–2002) Movie Stars (1999) The Michael Richards Show (2000–2001) Zero Effect (2001, pilot) (with Warner Bros. Television) Bliss (2002–2004) (with Warner Bros. Television) Lucky (2003) Notes External links Castle Rock Entertainment at the Internet Movie Database