IMAGINE... A Good One. Print

Imagine Entertainment (formerly Imagine Films Entertainment and also known simply as Imagine) is an American film and televisionproduction company founded in November 1985 by director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer. Background: Brian Grazer and Ron Howard met in 1982 on Night Shift, with Howard directing and Grazer co-producing. They followed it up by working on 1984's Splash. History: The company was originally founded in November 1985, following the success of the motion picture Splash. The company went public the following year. At first, the company set a deal with Tri-Star Pictures to produce feature films and television shows. Imagine granted Tri-Star the right of first refusal to syndicate their off-network shows produced by Imagine. Its offering was sold to Allen & Co. for 1,667,000 units for common stock and warrant it to purchase additional one-third of its stock. The net proceeds were used for development and production of theatrical films, television series, mini-series and made for television movies, although "the company does not presently intend to develop game shows or daytime soap operas." Imagine however has its prospectus having negotiations with Paramount Television for a commitment with ABC for a half-hour pilot and five episodes based on the comedy film Gung Ho. Later the same year, Imagine had a five-year deal with Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc. and it was able to develop projects for the channels Showtime and The Movie Channel. The agreement would kick-off with 1989 pay television availabilities and include pay-per view exhibition rights to all Imagine-produced films and about 30 motion pictures and "an unspecified number of original products" are also covered by the agreement. "There was the option of developing "long-form dramas" or series as part of the original material to be developed and aired exclusively on Showtime, adding that it could also acquire the syndication rights to these films and original products. On July 29, 1987, Tri-Star Pictures and Imagine Films Entertainment announced the termination of obligations by Imagine to offer Tri-Star distribution rights for all of its television programming and feature films. Imagine, which has received more than $1.7 million from Tri-Star, will make a $1.3 million payment to Tri-Star, the companies said and advances from Tri-Star will be eliminated. The companies said they "intend to work together on a project-by-project basis" and that projects already in development won't be affected. Imagine said the modified agreement "provides it with the flexibility to pursue certain financing and distribution opportunities which were not anticipated when the companies entered the original agreement." On December 1, 1987, the company sealed a production and distribution deal with Universal Pictures via a "long-term multiple picture agreement" that they distributed Imagine's films for three to five films a year and the agreement "contemplates the possibility" that Universal acquired a 20% share in Imagine and it will conclude through November 1992 for financing 50% of 30 films. Imagine had an IPO in 1986 at $8 for a package of one share and one warrant. Shares rose to $19.25 before falling in the stock market crash in 1987 to $2.25. In the summer of next year, Imagine struck a deal with MCA TV to handle distribution of its television material. MCA and Imagine will have a joint television venture which MCA has the exclusive network and home video distribution rights. Imagine retains domestic distribution rights for now and is banking on those rights becoming more valuable in the future as its theatrical and television programs gain exposure. Imagine's television division will focus on half-hour comedies, whereas MCA will focus one-hour programs for the networks. In the September of 1988, Robert Harris who was employee of MCA, and president of Universal Television Group joined the company as president of motion pictures and television. Harris said the studio is also taking original feature cable projects with Showtime, HBO, TNT, USA and MTV Network (which includes Nickelodeon and VH-1, in addition to projects with on-air networks) On May 29, 1989, Imagine and Central Independent Television signed a deal to make TV movies for the worldwide business. The new joint venture will produce between four to six TV movies and mini-series a year. MCA who owns about 20% of Imagine and has worldwide distribution rights to its TV series as well as to its long-form programs on a project-by-project basis will also have first consideration on international distribution rights to the joint venture's programs. Imagine and Central retain rights in the U.S. and UK, respectively. [The Imagine-Central joint venture is separate from MCA's own ongoing exploration of a joint venture with a European company for Europe-based long-form co-production. The company is in discussions with two or three potential partners, but a deal is not expected soon.] Its projects must have U.S. and UK presales to go forward, although the venture will seek U.S. buyers going beyond the three big commercial networks to include Fox, as well as cable networks TNT, USA Network, Showtime and HBO. The deal also allows for theatrical distribution, although such co-productions are not in the planning now. Imagine and Second City signed a joint venture deal in May 1989. In the September of 1989, Imagine is entering syndication production business and signed a long-term co-production deal with Second City Entertainment, for a late night talk/comedy strip that was distributed by MCA TV. It will use the ready talent pool of Second City comedians. The result is My Talk Show, which aired in the 1990-91 season. As HA!: The Comedy Network is ready to air in 1990, they stuck deals with Imagine Films Entertainment, for series featuring the Second City Repertory Company, as well as MTM Enterprises. In 1991, Imagine Films Entertainment shut down its original Imagine Television division, and terminating its exclusive production partnership with MCA, Inc., and it will lay off 30 of its 80 employees of its company. It came when the series My Talk Show, and Parenthood flopped. Andrew Suskind, Joyce Brotman, Todd Bergesen, Richard Pierson, Judy Ranam and Lisa Bloom left the company. By May 1992, 48% of the stock was public traded and worth $9.375. The duo agreed to a new six picture deal with Universal while concurrently offering $9 a share to buy the company's public outstanding share to start a new company with its assets. If not, they planned to leave the company at their contract expiration in November to start the new company anyway. Universal was providing the cash for a buyout of an equity stake in the new company. In early 1997, Imagine Entertainment reopened its television division, signed a deal with Walt Disney Television for the development of TV series, which would expire at the end of 2000. Its movie contract remained with Universal. It boosted up their access to Disney's TV production slate. Imagine was exclusive for development and production of TV projects, including half-hour comedy series, one-hour dramas, motion pictures for TV and miniseries. They hired Tony Krantz to be co-chairman of its television division, and it will share a stake in the television division with its founders Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, while overseeing the TV division's day-to-day operations. In 2000, the partnership teamed up with 20th Century Fox for development of TV series, an agreement set to expire at the end of 2016. In 2011, the company had three weak box office performers with The Dilemma, Cowboys & Aliens and Tower Heist. Because of their weak financial pact renewal with Universal in January 2012, Imagine laid off 5 employees, including production executive Jeremy Steckler. This also moves Imagine from exclusive to a first-look deal. By 2013, Imagine was considering other funding methods for the company's films including crowdfunding for a Friday Night Lights movie. In November 2013, Michael Rosenberg was promoted to co-chairman followed in December 2013, with Erica Huggins being promoted to his previous position as president. Industry insiders indicated in late January 2016 that a deal with Raine Group was in the works that would have Raine become a partner of the production company while contributing $100 million. On April 5, 2017, Imagine made a six-picture deal with Warner Bros. and Australian visual effects/animation studio Animal Logic to develop, finance, and produce six animated/live-action films. At the end of July 2017, the company struck a 4-year co-financing first look television production deal with CBS Corporation, which saw the former producing content for the company's CBS and Showtime television networks and CBS All Access SVOD streaming service. The agreement was reached by Grazer and CBS Corporation then-Chairman and then-CEO Les Moonves. In February 2018, Imagine acquired a controlling stake in Jax Media. In November that same year, the company also acquired a stake in content studio Marginal Mediaworks founded by CEO Sanjay Sharma. In December 2019, Imagine Entertainment CEO Rich Battista left the company after only less than 4 months since being appointed in late August. In June 2020, Imagine Entertainment made a substantial investment in Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions. Gibney formed the New York-based Jigsaw in 2012, and directed and produced Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, and Citizen K. More recently, the studio signed a first-look deal with Apple Originals. The Fantastic Four are a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They debuted in The Fantastic Four #1 (cover dated Nov. 1961), helping usher in a new level of realism in the medium. They were the first superhero team created by artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby and editor/co-plotter Stan Lee, who developed a collaborative approach to creating comics with this title. The four characters traditionally associated with the Fantastic Four, who gained superpowers after exposure to cosmic rays during a scientific mission to outer space, are: Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards), a scientific genius and the leader of the group, who can stretch his body into incredible lengths and shapes; the Invisible Woman (Susan "Sue" Storm), who eventually married Reed, who can render herself invisible and later project powerful invisible force fields; the Human Torch (Johnny Storm), Sue's younger brother, who can generate flames, surround himself with them and fly; the monstrous Thing (Ben Grimm), their grumpy but benevolent friend, a former college football star, Reed's college roommate and a good pilot, who possesses tremendous superhuman strength, durability and endurance due to his stone-like flesh. Since their 1961 introduction, the Fantastic Four have been portrayed as a somewhat dysfunctional, yet loving, family. Breaking convention with other comic archetypes, they squabbled, held grudges both deep and petty, and eschewed anonymity or secret identities in favor of celebrity status. They are also well known for their recurring encounters with characters such as the villainous monarch Doctor Doom; the planet-devouring Galactus; the Kree Empire's ruthless and tyrannical enforcer Ronan the Accuser; Annihilus, ruler of the Negative Zone; the sea-dwelling prince Namor; the spacefaring Silver Surfer; and the Skrull warrior Kl'rt. The Fantastic Four have been adapted into other media, including four animated series and four live-action films. Jacob Kurtzberg (/ˈkɜːrtsbɜːrɡ/; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994), better known by his pen name Jack Kirby, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before ultimately settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics. After serving in the European Theater in World War II, Kirby produced work for DC Comics, Harvey Comics, Hillman Periodicals and other publishers. At Crestwood Publications, he and Simon created the genre of romance comics and later founded their own short-lived comic company, Mainline Publications. Kirby was involved in Timely's 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, which in the next decade became Marvel. There, in the 1960s under writer-editor Stan Lee, Kirby co-created many of the company's major characters, including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Thor, the Hulk and Iron Man. The Lee–Kirby titles garnered high sales and critical acclaim, but in 1970, feeling he had been treated unfairly, largely in the realm of authorship credit and creators' rights, Kirby left the company for rival DC. At DC, Kirby created his Fourth World saga which spanned several comics titles. While these series proved commercially unsuccessful and were canceled, the Fourth World's New Gods have continued as a significant part of the DC Universe. Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the mid-to-late 1970s, then ventured into television animation and independent comics. In his later years, Kirby, who has been called "the William Blake of comics", began receiving great recognition in the mainstream press for his career accomplishments, and in 1987 he was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame. In 2017, Kirby was posthumously named a Disney Legendwith Lee for their co-creations not only in the field of publishing, but also because those creations formed the basis for The Walt Disney Company's financially and critically successful media franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kirby was married to Rosalind Goldstein in 1942. They had four children and remained married until his death from heart failure in 1994, at the age of 76. The Jack Kirby Awards and Jack Kirby Hall of Fame were named in his honor, and he is known as "The King" among comics fans for his many influential contributions to the medium. Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber /ˈliːbər/; December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018) was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business to become Marvel Comics' primary creative leader for two decades, leading its expansion from a small division of a publishing house to a multimedia corporation that dominated the comics and film industries. In collaboration with others at Marvel—particularly co-writers/artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—he co-created numerous popular fictional characters, including superheroes Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Wasp, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, the Black Widow and Captain Marvel. These and other characters' introductions in the 1960s pioneered a more naturalistic approach than previously applied to superhero comics, and in the 1970s Lee challenged the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to changes in its policies. In the 1980s he pursued the development of Marvel properties in other media, with mixed results. Following his retirement from Marvel in the 1990s, he remained a public figurehead for the company, and frequently made cameo appearances in films and television shows based on Marvel characters, on which he received an executive producer credit. Meanwhile, he continued independent creative ventures into his 90s, until his death in 2018. Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received the NEA's National Medal of Arts in 2008. Mark Millar MBE (/ˈmɪlər/; born 24 December 1969) is a Scottish comic book writer, known for his work on The Authority, the Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Wanted, Chrononauts, Superior and Kick-Ass, the latter seven of which have been, or are planned to be, adapted into feature films. His DC Comics work includes Superman: Red Son. At Marvel Comics he created The Ultimates, selected by Time magazine as the comic book of the decade, and described by screenwriter Zak Penn as a major inspiration for 2012's The Avengers movie. Millar wrote Civil Warand "Wolverine: Old Man Logan", two of Marvel's biggest-selling storylines. The former inspired the 2016 Marvel Studios film Captain America: Civil War, while the latter was the inspiration for the 2017 20th Century Fox film Logan. Millar has been an executive producer on all of his films, and for four years worked as a creative consultant to Fox Studios on their Marvel slate of films. In 2017, Netflix bought Millar's comic line, Millarworld, which Millar and his wife Lucy will continue to run, publishing new comics and adapting them for other media. Jonathan Hickman (born September 3, 1972) is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for creating the Image Comicsseries The Nightly News, The Manhattan Projects and East of West, as well as working on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, FF, and S.H.I.E.L.D. titles. In 2012, Hickman ended his run on the Fantastic Four titles to write The Avengers and The New Avengers, as part the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch. In 2013, Hickman wrote a six-part miniseries, Infinity, plus Avengers tie-ins for Marvel Comics. In 2015, he wrote the crossover event Secret Wars. Source: Wikipedia