History
Anchor Bay Entertainment can date its origins back to two separate home video distributors: Video Treasures, formed in 1985, and Starmaker Entertainment, founded sometime in the late 1980s. Both companies sold budget items - reissues of previously released home video programming - at discount prices. Video Treasures started with public domain titles, and later made licensing deals with Heron Communications (including Media Home Entertainment and Hi-Tops Video), Britt Allcroft (the Thomas the Tank Engine series), Trans World Entertainment, Regal Video, Virgin Vision, Hal Roach Studios, Jerry Lewis, 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 their video division. Viacom programs and Saturday Night Live compilations were other notable Starmaker releases. The companies competed with each other for years, until they were sold to Handleman Company, and formed a new corporate umbrella: Anchor Bay Entertainment, in May 1995. Both the Video Treasures and Starmaker labels were phased out a few years later.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Anchor Bay specialized in the release of horror films, particularly cult films and slasher movies from the 1970s and 1980s. One of its first releases was Prom Night in 1980; it also released Halloween (as well as its third, fourth, and fifth sequels), Hellraiser, and many others, leading the home video market for obscure and retro horror films.
Anchor Bay remained part of Handleman until 2003, when it was acquired by IDT Entertainment.
On February 4, 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against two former employees of Anchor Bay Entertainment, a former subsidiary of Handleman Company. The SEC's complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleges that the two employees caused the company to enter into two million-dollar sham transactions. The transactions involved the purported sale of slow moving or obsolete inventory to business partners coupled 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.
Liberty Media, the owner of the Starz cable network, purchased IDT Entertainment from IDT Corp. in 2006 and renamed it Starz Media.
In May 2007, Anchor Bay became known as Starz Home Entertainmen (SHE). SHE announced on June 19, 2007 that it will be releasing high definition versions of its films exclusively in the Blu-ray format.
In 2008, Starz Media re-instated the Anchor Bay Entertainment brand and all current releases bear this name. Many of the company's past cult titles have gone out of print, although some have been reissued by Blue Underground.
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