Background
The company originally distributed and acquired art-house films from around the world to U.S. audiences; they soon added original productions to their roster as well, starting with The Golden Seal in 1983.
In succeeding years, the Goldwyn company was able to obtain (from Samuel Sr.'s estate) the rights to all films produced under Samuel Goldwyn, including the original Bulldog Drummond (1929), Arrowsmith (1931), and Guys and Dolls (1955). The company also acquired some distribution rights to several films and television programs that were independently produced but released by other companies, including Sayonara, the Hal Roach-produced Laurel & Hardy-starring vehicle Babes in Toyland (1934), the Flipper TV series produced by MGM Television, the Academy Award-winning Tom Jones (1963), and the Rodgers and Hammerstein film productions of South Pacific (1958), Oklahoma! (1955), as well as the CBS Television adaptation of Cinderella (1965).
Animated films include The Care Bears Movie, The Chipmunk Adventure, and Rock-a-Doodle. Among the television programs in the Goldwyn company's library are the television series American Gladiators and Steve Krantz's miniseries Dadah is Death.
In 1991, after a merger with Heritage Entertainment, Inc., the company went public as Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment. Heritage and Goldwyn attempted to merge during late 1990, but the plans fell apart while Heritage went through a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. That company and its library were acquired by Metromedia in 1996 (for US$125 million), and in 1997 sold to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This company's function of acquiring independent films for American release (or producing such films) has been assumed by United Artists (incidentally one of the distributors of films from the original Goldwyn company), which was recently relaunched with the help of Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner.
Goldwyn has since gone on to found Samuel Goldwyn Films. This successor company has continued to release independent films such as What tнe #$*! Dө ωΣ (k)πow!? and the Academy Award-nominated The Squid and the Whale.
Read more about this topic: The Samuel Goldwyn Company
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