Anchor Bay Entertainment

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Anchor Bay Entertainment is a home video/television distribution company which has released films by Sam Raimi, Werner Herzog, George Romero, Monte Hellman, Dario Argento, John Landis, Peter Jackson, Kathryn Bigelow, Alfred Hitchcock and Wim Wenders formed in 1989. Anchor Bay often restores and releases previously unavailable films, sometimes in keepsake, limited edition packages. Anchor Bay Entertainment got its name from the school system in New Baltimore, Michigan.

The company's UK division was launched in 2001.

Anchor Bay was a division of IDT Entertainment until Liberty Media (the owner of the Starz cable network) purchased IDT Entertainment from IDT Corp.in 2006 and renamed it Starz Media, which continues to own Anchor Bay. All Anchor Bay releases are distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, who also distributes Lions Gate Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer home video titles. Under this deal, Anchor Bay is allowed to release certain Fox titles on DVD under their label, being that Fox does not have interest in releasing these titles themselves. These titles bear the notice "Under license from 20th Century Fox" on their back packaging.

1 Home Video
2 Children's Home Video
3 Television
4 Evil Dead Films
5 Miscellany
6 External links

[edit] Home Video

Anchor Bay Entertainment currently holds the home video rights to the Three's Company and Xena: Warrior Princess television series, as well as most of the libraries of Embassy Pictures, Rankin-Bass, EMI Films, HBO Films, and Alexander Salkind (via StudioCanal); Moustapha Akkad's Trancas International Pictures (production company behind the Halloween movie series); George Harrison's Handmade Films (Time Bandits, Mona Lisa, etc.); New World Pictures (Children of the Corn, Sledge Hammer, etc.); Stephen J. Cannell Productions (The Greatest American Hero, Hunter, 21 Jump Street, etc.); Carsey-Werner Productions (Roseanne, 3rd Rock from the Sun, etc.); the Davis-Panzer Production Company (which includes the feature film The Osterman Weekend and the Highlander television series) and some of the 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures libraries. At one point, Anchor Bay held the video rights to some of Walt Disney Pictures' live-action features, and had planned on producing a director's cut of the 1981 suspense film The Watcher in the Woods, but continuous interference from the Walt Disney Company led to only providing "alternate endings".

[edit] Children's Home Video

In addition to feature films, Anchor Bay Entertainment distributes popular children's video series, including Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and Bobby's World. Thomas has reached platinum-selling status and in 2004 ranks consistently on the VideoScan ranking top 50 chart of children's weekly video sales. The company also has a top market share for fitness videos such as the "Crunch" and "For Dummies" series.

[edit] Television

As a television distribution company, they hold the TV rights to the fourth and fifth films in the aforementioned Halloween movie series.

[edit] Evil Dead Films

Anchor Bay is also noted for the release of the Evil Dead film trilogy on DVD, in numerous editions. Army of Darkness for example, had been released in both a regular and limited edition set that featured the director's cut of the film. Since then, the director's cut has been re-released on two separate occasions in addition to a two-disc "Boomstick Edition" of the film as well. Until Anchor Bay released The Evil Dead on VHS and DVD it was previously unavailable on video from a major label. Anchor Bay no longer has the rights to distribute Army Of Darkness since Universal has found the movie to be very profitable for them on DVD and HD-DVD formats. Unlike Anchor Bay the Universal releases do not have special features and some would say inferior picture quality compared to the Anchor Bay releases.

[edit] Miscellany

The company was awarded the Special Achievement Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in June 2002.

Anchor Bay Entertainment sells to major retail outlets nationwide. The company is located in Troy, Michigan and is an operating unit of Starz Media, a subsidiary of Liberty Media.