Summit Entertainment LLC is an American film production company and distributor.
It is a subsidiary of Lions Gate Entertainment, headquartered in
Universal City, California with international offices in London.
History Summit was originally founded in 1991 by
film producers Bernd Eichinger, Arnon Milchan, and Andrew G. Vajna, initially
to handle film sales in foreign countries. Summit later expanded into
producing and co-financing films in 1995, and started fully financing films
by 1997. Summit officially launched in 1993 by Patrick Wachsberger, Bob Hayward
and David Garrett under the name Summit Entertainment LP as a production,
distribution, and sales organization. Among the company's early successes was
American Pie, which Summit distributed outside of English-speaking territories.
In 2006, it became a fully independent film production company, Summit
Entertainment, with the addition of Rob Friedman, a former executive at
Paramount Pictures. The new company added major development, production,
acquisitions, marketing and distribution branches with a financing deal led by
Merrill Lynch and other investors giving it access to over $1 billion in
financing. With that, Summit established the home video distribution due to the
production of the Twilight film series. Summit is also distributed theatrically
and on DVD in Europe and in Canada by Entertainment One.
After a string of flops including P2, Penelope, and Sex Drive, Summit finally
found success in November 2008 with the release of Twilight, a teen romance
about vampires based on the best-selling book of the same name by Stephenie Meyer
that made $408,773,703 worldwide. In the spring of 2009, Summit released Knowing,
the company's second movie to open #1 at the box office and made $182,492,056
worldwide. In November 2009, Summit released the
sequel to Twilight titled The Twilight Saga: New Moon, also based on the
popular novel by Stephenie Meyer, breaking box office records in its first
weekend, grossing $142,839,137 in three days and posting the fourth all-time
best weekend box office figure behind Columbia Pictures' Spider-Man 3 and
Warner Bros. Pictures' The Dark Knight and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
– Part 2. On June 30, 2010 Summit released the
third film of the Twilight series, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. It broke a
midnight screening record of over $30 million and set a one-day Wednesday
record of $68.5 million but failed to surpass the one-day tally of $72 million
set by New Moon. It became the first movie in the series to cross the $300
million mark domestically. Other Summit releases include: Ender's
Game; Next Day Air; The Hurt Locker; the animated Astro Boy; teen horror film
Sorority Row; the low-budget Push; Bandslam; Letters to Juliet; and, the
sleeper hit, RED. In 2008, Summit ranked in eighth place
among the studios, with a gross of $226.5 million, almost entirely because
of the release of Twilight. In 2009, Summit ranked 7th among studios with a
gross of $482.5 million. = Acquisition by Lions Gate
Entertainment= In September 2008, merger talks between
Summit and Lions Gate Entertainment were the subject of media speculation, but no
deal was finalized at that time. On February 1, 2009, it was announced that
Lionsgate would acquire Summit, along with its library of six films and rights
to the Twilight franchise, but two days later, these merger negotiations broke
down due to concerns over changing content. On January 13, 2012, Lions Gate
Entertainment acquired Summit for $412.5 million.
Film distributor history See also
List of Summit Entertainment films Smith v. Summit Entertainment LLC
References External links
Official website Summit Entertainment at the Internet
Movie Database Reuters Story