Industry Film Defunct 1967 Founded 1957 Parent organization Warner Bros.-Seven Arts | Genre Entertainment Founder Ray Stark Ceased operations 1967 Key people Ray Stark, Eliot Hyman | |
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Films produced The Misfits, West Side Story, One Million Years BC, What Ever Happened to Baby J, Dracula: Prince of Darkness | ||
Seven Arts Productions was a production company which made films for release by other studios. It was founded in 1957 by Ray Stark and Eliot Hyman.
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Among its productions were The Misfits (1961) for United Artists, Gigot (1962) for Twentieth Century-Fox, Lolita (1962) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) for Warner Bros., and Is Paris Burning? (1966) for Paramount Pictures.
Over time it expanded its role, becoming equity investors with other studios and partnering with British horror film company Hammer Film Productions on many projects. It also retained ancillary rights on new productions surrendered on earlier films, including Seven Days in May (1964) and Promise Her Anything (1965) for release by Paramount.
Seven Arts also distributed feature films and TV programs for television. Warner Bros. licensed the TV rights to its post-1949 library to Seven Arts in 1960. Seven Arts made similar deals with 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures. Seven Arts also acquired theatrical reissue rights to some Fox films as well.
Warner Bros. acquisition
In 1967, Seven Arts Productions acquired the controlling interest in Warner Bros. from Jack L. Warner for $32 million. The companies were merged as Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. It was once again renamed Warner Bros. after Kinney National Company bought the company.
Today
Neither today's Seven Arts Pictures nor the defunct releasing company "Seven Arts", an early 1990s joint venture between Carolco Pictures and New Line Cinema (the latter which, ironically, subsequently merged into Warner Bros.), is related to the original Seven Arts Productions.