Anchor Bay Entertainment was an American home video distributor, based in Troy, Michigan. A year after Starz launched a home entertainment division in 2016, they later folded Anchor Bay Entertainment into Lionsgate Home Entertainment.
History[]
Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment[]
Anchor Bay's origins can be traced back to two seperate companies: Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment. These two companies competed with each other for years, starting in the late 1980s. Video Treasures started out with public domain films, and eventually secured licensing deals with Britt Allcroft (releasing Thomas the Tank Engine), Orion Pictures, Jerry Lewis, Hal Roach Studios (Our Gang), and Media Home Entertainment. Starmaker was licensed to distribute films from New World Pictures, as well as most of Viacom's library, including Saturday Night Live. This competition continued for many years.
In 1995, Video Treasures and Starmaker were both sold to Handleman Company. Handleman formed the two companies into one: Anchor Bay Entertainment. Handleman immediately began to phase out the Video Treasures and Starmaker brands. Anchor Bay began to release horror films, especially cult and slasher films from the 1970s and 1980s. These included Prom Night, Hellraiser and the Halloween series (except for Halloween II.) Anchor Bay was also one of the pioneers of DVD, releasing horror films on disc as early as 1998.
In 2003, Anchor Bay was sold to IDT Corp. IDT Entertainment (the part of IDT Corp. including Anchor Bay) was purchased by Liberty Media, owner of the Starz Cable Network, in 2006. They renamed IDT Entertainment to Starz Media, and Anchor Bay became Starz Home Entertainment. The next year, SHE stated that they would be releasing HD versions of their films on Blu-Ray. In 2008, however, Starz restated that Anchor Bay name. All of their releases since then have carried the Anchor Bay brand.
In May 2007, Anchor Bay became known as Starz Home Entertainment (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 reinstated 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.
On January 4, 2011, Starz, LLC sold 25% of Starz Media to The Weinstein Company, which rendered Anchor Bay the de facto video distributor of films made by TWC and Dimension. Starz later bought back the Weinstein's stake in October 2015, with Anchor Bay continuing to release TWC and Dimension video releases.
In early 2015, Anchor Bay UK (alongside Manga Entertainment UK) was bought from Starz by managing director Colin Lomax and renamed to Platform Entertainment. Kaleidoscope Film Distribution would acquire Platform in December 2016, with Manga Entertainment UK becoming an separate entity and operating on its own, which itself was eventually acquired by Funimation in 2019.
On June 30, 2016, Lionsgate agreed to acquire Anchor Bay's parent company Starz Inc. for $4.4 billion in cash and stock. The Starz/Lionsgate merger was completed on December 8, 2016. Afterwards, Lionsgate folded Anchor Bay into Lionsgate's home entertainment division. As of 2019, Anchor Bay's website remains online, but with all the links broken.