Starz Entertainment Corp, formerly known officially as Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation and commonly as Lions Gate and/or Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...

company currently headquartered in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

. Founded by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, it is/was domiciled and incorporated in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, British Columbia. Prior to 2024, the then-named Lionsgate owned film and television studios under its own umbrella. They have since been spun off into

Lionsgate Studios Lionsgate Studios Corp. (simply known as Lionsgate Studios) is a Canadian-American film and television production and distribution conglomerate, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, and primarily based in Santa Monica, California. It was f ...

on May 14, 2024, of which Starz owned 87% until its separation on May 7, 2025. The company trades on

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

via the stock symbol STRZ.

History

Formation

Lionsgate was formed in 1997 by Frank Giustra, whose $16 million investment was augmented by $40 million from investors including Keyur Patel and Yorkton Securities' executives such as G. Scott Paterson. Giustra had recently retired as CEO from Yorkton, an investment bank, and Paterson was then president. Giustra then merged Lionsgate with Toronto Stock Exchange-listed Beringer Gold Corp. (founded in 1986) to take the company public. Beringer's mining assets were soon sold off."Lionsgate
Lionsgate Investors
https://investors.lionsgate.com "Retrieved on May 23, 2012" Lionsgate then began a series of acquisitions to get into the film industry. The company bought a number of small production facilities and distributors, starting with

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

-based Cinépix Film Properties (which became the present-day Lionsgate Films) and North Shore Studios (which became known as Lions Gate Studios, until its acquisition in 2006) in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mandalay Television was acquired by Lionsgate from Peter Guber for a 4% Lionsgate stake.

Early history

In 1998, Lionsgate helped Guber form Mandalay Pictures with a 45% investment in Mandalay. Lionsgate followed that up with a June purchase of International Movie Group, Inc. (IMG), a bankrupt film distributor previously invested in by Guber and Yorktown Securities, for its film library. IMG's CEO Peter Strauss became President of Lions Gate Entertainment, Inc. (LGE), the American parent company for Lionsgate's U.S. interests. The Lions Gate Media subsidiary was also formed to produce for television. Completing its first year of operation, Lionsgate had a revenue of $42.2 million with a loss of $397,000. The company share price dropped to a low of $1.40. This limited the corporation's ability to make acquisitions via stock swaps. Lionsgate instead made its next acquisition of Termite Art Productions, a reality-based television production company, for $2.75 million by issuing three convertible promissory notes. Giustra had the shareholders vote to move the company's public listing from the Toronto Stock Exchange to the American Stock Exchange, along with a two-for-one stock consolidation to qualify, for greater exposure that might boost share value. In January 1999, Roman Doroniuk was named president and chief operating officer of Lionsgate, which led to the corporation's financial operations being moved in April to Doroniuk's offices in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

while corporate headquarters remained in

, British Columbia. Lionsgate created US based Avalanche Films and acquired half of Sterling Home Entertainment, both in video sales. Again, Lionsgate registered losses in its second year of $9.3 million on revenues of $78.3 million with most of the losses from its stake in Mandalay Pictures. Thus in the summer, Lionsgate placed its studios up for sale with no buyers. Television operations were changed to non-network hourlong series over riskier network shows and ended its relationship with Mandalay Television. The corporation sought out more capital and cash with a filing of a preliminary prospectus for the sale of preferred stock and common stock warrants and a $13.4 million line of credit.

2000s expansion

Additional acquisition funding arrived in January 2000 as a $33.1 million investment from an investor group that included Paul Allen, former Sony Pictures executive Jon Feltheimer, German broadcasting company Tele-Munchen, and SBS Broadcasting SA. This led to Feltheimer taking over as CEO from Giustra thus the passed over Doroniuk left the company. Feltheimer increased film making including several $1 million films at Avalanche. However, Federgreen still remains one of the major owners of the company and is extremely involved in the making of all their major movies. In June, Lionsgate acquired Trimark Holdings, Inc. for approximately $50 million in stock and cash including taking on $36 million in debt. Lionsgate continued making acquisitions during the decade to boost distribution and its film library. On December 15, 2003, Lionsgate acquired Artisan Entertainment for $220 million. Following the acquisition, Lionsgate relocated from Marina del Rey to Artisan's headquarters in Santa Monica. In 2004, Erik Nelson reacquired Termite Art from Lionsgate, renaming it Creative Differences. Lionsgate partnered with Panamax Films in 2005 to make movies for the Latino market which only produced two films. On April 13, 2005, Lionsgate spun off its Canadian distribution unit into a new distribution unit called Maple Pictures under the direction of two former Lionsgate executives, Brad Pelman and Laurie May. On August 1, 2005, Lions Gate Entertainment acquired the entire library of Modern Entertainment, the U.S. film division of the Swedish television company Modern Times Group. On October 17, 2005, Lionsgate acquired UK company Redbus Film Distribution for $35 million and became Lionsgate UK on February 23, 2006. On March 15, 2006, Lionsgate sold Lions Gate Studios to Bosa Development Corporation. On July 12, Lionsgate purchased Debmar-Mercury, an independent television distributor, which has continued operations as a Lionsgate subsidiary. The company agreed in August to lease terms with

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

State Land Office and the city of Rio Rancho for a new 52.8 acres studio near Rio Rancho's under construction city center and arena. On July 26, 2007, Lionsgate bought a partial stake in independent film distribution company Roadside Attractions. Lionsgate started up Lionsgate Music by June 2007. On September 10, 2007, Lionsgate bought Mandate Pictures for $56.3 million, $44.3 million in cash and $12 million in stock, and taking on $6.6 million of Mandate's debt. Mandate Chief Executive Joe Drake returned to the company as co-chief operating officer of its film unit. By July 2008, Lionsgate has not made any progress on building its new film studio in Rio Rancho or on setting up the corporation to run the studio per its agreement with New Mexico. In November, Lionsgate Music established a joint venture with music publishing company Wind-up Records. In January 2009, Lionsgate purchased

TV Guide Network The American cable television, cable and satellite television network Pop (American TV channel), Pop was originally launched in 1981 as a barker channel service providing a display of localized electronic program guide, channel and program listin ...

and TVGuide.com from Rovi for $255 million cash. In May 2009, Lionsgate sold a 49% stake in

and website to One Equity Partners under pressure from shareholder Carl Icahn. Lionsgate cut back its slate of films per year by four in February 2009. In April, Relativity Media signed with Lionsgate for a 5 picture per year multi-year film distribution. In August, Lionsgate signed with Redbox for a five-year same day release deal worth $158 million. Lionsgate, along with

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

and

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

/ Viacom, was also a co-owner of Epix, a pay TV movie channel which debuted on October 30.

2010s

On September 13, 2010, Lionsgate and Televisa formed a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

, Pantelion Films, to produce for the next five years eight to 10 films a year targeted for the U.S. Latin American market. Lionsgate sold off its Canadian distribution unit, Maple Pictures, in September 2011 to Alliance Films. Lionsgate announced on January 13, 2012, that it had acquired Summit Entertainment, producers and distributors of the '' Twilight Saga'' films, for $412.5 million. The two companies have planned on merging since 2008. On October 6, 2012, Lions Gate Entertainment announced that Brian Goldsmith became the co-COO of the company and joining co-COO Steve Beeks. On November 18, 2012, Lionsgate announced it has passed over the $1 billion mark for the first time with the success of ''The Hunger Games'' and '' The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2''. On December 23, 2013, Lionsgate announced they have crossed over $1 billion domestically and internationally for the second year in a row with the success of '' The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'', '' Now You See Me'', '' Instructions Not Included'', and '' Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain''. On April 14, 2014,

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

acquired the remaining stakes in Fearnet from Lionsgate and Sony Pictures Entertainment. On April 21, 2014, Lionsgate announced that they will merge its movie marketing operations. A few days later, on April 30, Lionsgate announced that the studios will expand into the gaming development.Lionsgate expanding into video games under Nerdist co-founder's lead
Alexa Ray Corriea polygon.com April 30, 2014, Retrieved on July 2, 2014 In 2015, Lionsgate took over the distribution functions for

CBS Films CBS Films Inc. was an American film production and distribution company founded in 2007 as a subsidiary of CBS Corporation and was considered a Major film studio#Mini-majors, mini-major studio up until 2019. CBS Films originally was planned t ...

, the film division of

CBS Corporation CBS Corporation was an American multinational media company with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing and television production. It was split from Viacom on December 31, 2005, alongside an entirely new Viacom; both ...

. On February 11, 2015, John C. Malone swapped a 4.5% stake with 14.5% of the voting power in Starz Inc. for 3.4% of Lionsgate's shares while joining the company's board of directors.Lionsgate, Starz Swap Stock as John Malone Joins Board
Brent Lang variety.com February 11, 2015, Retrieved on February 26, 2015 Fourteen days later, Starz CEO Chris Albrecht hinted a possible merger with Lionsgate.Starz CEO Albrecht Hints at Possible Merger With Lions Gate
Jeff Berman thestreet.com February 25, 2015, Retrieved on February 26, 2015 On April 1, 2015, Lionsgate announced it has created its new label, Lionsgate Premiere. This new label will handle up to 15 releases a year, targeting young audiences at theaters and digital outlets. The new label, part of the company's diversification effort, will incorporate Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment titles (including the '' Step Up'' film series and the '' Red'' film series) and then specialize in "innovative multiplatform and other release strategies" to reach "affinity audiences with branded content and targeted marketing." Marketing and Research SVP Jean McDowell will handle marketing, with distribution to be run by Adam Sorensen, who currently manages Western Sales. On November 10, 2015, Malone's two other companies, Liberty Global and Discovery, Inc. (now Warner Bros. Discovery), made a joint investment of $195–400 million in Lionsgate and acquired a 3.4% stake in the company. Then on June 30, 2016, Lionsgate agreed to acquire Starz Inc. for $4.4 billion in cash and stock. As of December 2016, it became the parent company of Starz Inc. On November 12, 2015, Lionsgate created a partnership with television producer Craig Piligian when the studio acquired more than 50% of his Pilgrim Studios company worth $200 million. Piligian retained his position as CEO of the company while Pilgrim will continue to operate independently under Piligian. The deal made Lionsgate a major unscripted player. On July 13, 2016, Lionsgate acquired a minority stake in British unscripted television production startup company Primal Media. It was launched by Matt Steiner and Adam Wood, who originally launched Gogglebox Entertainment that was acquired by Sony Pictures Television.

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

also owns an approximately 2% stake in Lionsgate. On December 15, 2017, the weekly US financial newspaper Barron's revealed that Malone was selling nearly 108,000 class B shares in Lionsgate for $3.2 million, or $29.63 each, from December 4 to 13. Malone now owns directly and indirectly 6 million nonvoting class B shares, as well as beneficially about 6 million class A shares, which carry one vote each. Following sexual abuse allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, Lionsgate was listed as one of 22 potential buyers interested in acquiring The Weinstein Company. In 2018, Lionsgate's newly launched digital content unit, Studio L, announced its first slate. In October 2018, Agapy Kapouranis replaced Peter Iacono as president of international television and digital distribution.

2018−2023: Acquisition targets

In January 2018, Lionsgate became the subject of a bidding war for a possible acquisition, with

and Sony Pictures having made offers. At the time, Lionsgate Vice Chairman Michael Burns stated in an interview with

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

that Lionsgate was mostly interested in merging with CBS and Viacom. Viacom and Lionsgate were both interested in acquiring The Weinstein Company. On February 27, 2018, a month after the bidding war announcement, '' Variety'' reported in a detailed article that toy manufacturing company

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...

(which had collaborated with the company in the 2017 film '' My Little Pony: The Movie'' via its Allspark Pictures theatrical film financing unit which is in turn owned by its Allspark division) came close to also acquiring Lionsgate, but the deal fell through. Hasbro would later go on to acquire Entertainment One (eOne; another Canadian-founded business) on December 30, 2019. On October 3, 2019, Malone completed the sale of his stake in the studio. In April 2021, Lionsgate's Starz division filed an injunction in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico against

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

over the use of the Star+ brand in Latin America. The two companies would reach a settlement in August that same year. In July 2021, Lionsgate purchased an 18.9% equity stake in Spyglass Media Group and acquired the catalogue of The Weinstein Company from Spyglass.

2023–present: Entertainment One acquisition, split from studios and rebranding

From January 2023, Lionsgate entered a movie distribution deal with Cineplex Pictures, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Cineplex Entertainment which will see the release of selected Lionsgate titles in Canada. On July 17, 2023, ''

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. It is updated several times a day, with en ...

'' reported that Lionsgate was a frontrunner to acquire Entertainment One from Hasbro. On August 3, 2023, Lionsgate announced it would acquire the motion picture and television assets of Entertainment One from Hasbro for $500 million. Included among the assets are the trademarks of Maple Pictures, which Lionsgate divested to Alliance Films in 2011. The studio is expected to also pay $375 million in cash and $125 million in production financing loans related to the purchase. The acquisition was completed on December 27, 2023, and eOne would later rebrand as "Lionsgate Canada" the following year; re-establishing Lionsgate's Canadian roots. Following the completion of acquisition of Entertainment One on December 27, 2023, Lionsgate revealed its plan to split its film and television assets from Starz following the completion of the company's acquisition of eOne. The company's Studios division will merge with Screaming Eagle Corp., a

special-purpose acquisition company A special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a blank check company or a blind-pool stock offering, is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring (or merging with) a private company, thus taking ...

led by Eli Baker, to form a separate publicly traded company,

. The transaction sets a $4.6-billion value on Lionsgate Studios and the deal was closed on May 7, 2024. The company was launched on May 14, 2024 and it has been trading on

via the stock symbol LION. Lionsgate remained the controlling shareholder owning around 87% of Lionsgate Studios following the split. On November 28, 2024, Lionsgate rebranded to Starz Entertainment to distinguish itself from Lionsgate Studios. On May 7, 2025, the separation of Lionsgate Studios and Starz Entertainment was finalized after having been approved by shareholders. Starz Entertainment delisted its two classes of stock under the ticker symbols LGF.A and LGF.B from the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

and began trading as STRZ on the Nasdaq.

Divisions and units

Lionsgate Interactive Ventures and Games

Lionsgate Interactive Ventures and Games is the

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

development division of Starz Entertainment. It was founded in April 2014 and is headed by Nerdist Industries co-founder Peter Levin. This division is dedicated to producing and distributing multiplatform games based on Lionsgate franchises, and investing in digital businesses. One of these franchises was '' Blair Witch'', with Lionsgate Games publishing a '' Blair Witch'' game in 2019.

Lionsgate Entertainment World

Lionsgate Entertainment World is an indoor interactive experience centre based on Lionsgate's blockbuster film franchises, such as ''

The Hunger Games ''The Hunger Games'' are a series of Young adult fiction, young adult Dystopian fiction, dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The series consists of a trilogy that follows teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and two ...

'', '' The Divergent Series'' and '' Now You See Me'', opened on Hengqin, Zhuhai, China in the first half of 2019. The Lionsgate project is an investment by Hong Kong conglomerate Lai Sun Group and designed and produced by Thinkwell Group.

Celestial Tiger Entertainment

In 2008, Lionsgate formed Celestial Tiger Entertainment (CTE) with Saban Capital Group and Celestial Pictures. CTE oversees the distribution rights of Lionsgate properties in

Greater China In ethnogeography, "Greater China" is a loosely-defined term that refers to the region sharing cultural and economic ties with the Chinese people, often used by international enterprises or organisations in unofficial usage. The notion contains ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

Distribution

The distribution of selected recent non-in-house films for pay-per-view and on-demand are under the supervision of NBCUniversal Syndication Studios via

Universal Pictures Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...

(Universal formerly held home video and television rights to many of the early Lionsgate films), while all others (particularly the in-house films) are distributed for both cable and broadcast television through Lionsgate's syndicated division. Amazon MGM Studios, under

MGM Television Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television, formerly known as MGM/UA Television, is the television studio arm of the American film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), specializing in broadcast syndication and the production and distribution of television sh ...

, are also distributed in international cable, digital and broadcast television through Lionsgate's syndicated division.

Television and streaming

Starz's main outlet is the namesake Starz premium

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

and

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

and streaming service that also includes sister channels Starz Encore and MoviePlex. In addition to the "Sphere" family of channels ("MovieSphere by Lionsgate", "OuterSphere by Lionsgate", "HerSphere by Lionsgate"), Lionsgate also operates other streaming services and FAST channels through various partnerships. In a joint venture with Ebony Media Group, the company programs the "Ebony TV by Lionsgate" channel. In 2015, Lionsgate formed a joint venture with Tribeca Enterprises to launch the "Tribeca Shortlist" streaming service and "Tribeca Channel" FAST channel. In 2017, Lionsgate partnered with comedian

Kevin Hart Kevin Darnell Hart (born July 6, 1979) is an American comedian and actor. The accolades he has received include the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and nominations for two Grammy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. After winning se ...

to launch the LOL Network. In 2023, Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Gray Television formed Free TV Networks.

Assets

Corporate governance

Board of Directors as of July 2021: Chairman of the Board of Directors * Mark Rachesky, M.D., founder and president of MHR Fund Management Directors * Michael Burns, vice-chairman of Lionsgate * Mignon Clyburn, president of MLC Strategies * Gordon Crawford, former Capital Research executive * Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate * Emily Fine, executive at MHR Fund Management * Michael Fries, CEO and vice-chairman of Liberty Global * Susan McCaw, president of SRM Capital * Yvette Ostolaza, partner at Sidley Austin * Daryl Simm, chairman and CEO of Omnicom Media * Hardwick Simmons, former chairman and CEO of

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1997 establishments in British Columbia Companies based in Santa Monica, California Companies listed on the Nasdaq Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Entertainment companies established in 1997 Entertainment companies based in California Mass media companies established in 1997 Mass media companies of the United States Cable network groups in the United States