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. The company was named for the
Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, highlighting the company's founding location. Giustra had recently retired as CEO from Yorkton, an investment bank, of which 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 then began a series of acquisitions to enter the film industry, buying small production facilities and distributors, including, in 1997,
Montreal-based
Cinépix Film Properties (which became the present-day
Lionsgate Films), and Peter Guber’s Vancouver, British Columbia studios,
North Shore Studios (which became known as Lions Gate Studios, until its sale in 2006) and
Mandalay Television, which was acquired with a 4% Lionsgate stake provision for Gruber.
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. 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 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 and
TVGuide.com from
Rovi for $255 million cash. In May 2009, Lionsgate sold a 49% stake in
TV Guide Network 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 and
Paramount Pictures/
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,
Pantelion Films, to produce for the next five years eight to 10 films a year targeted for the U.S. Latin American market. 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 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. In 2015, Lionsgate took over the distribution functions for
CBS Films, the film division of
CBS Corporation. 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. Fourteen days later, Starz CEO Chris Albrecht hinted a possible merger with Lionsgate. 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. 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 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 for a acquisition, with
Sony Pictures Entertainment. On February 27, 2018, a month after the bidding war announcement,
Variety reported in a detailed article that toy manufacturing company
Hasbro (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 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 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 led by Eli Baker, to form a separate publicly traded company,
Lionsgate Studios. 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
Nasdaq 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 and began trading as STRZ on the Nasdaq.
Bloomberg reported on November 16, 2025 that Starz Entertainment was interested in making a bid to buy
A+E Global Media, a joint venture of
The Walt Disney Company and
Hearst Corporation. On December 17, 2025, it was reported that Starz was interested in
acquiring the Global Linear Networks businesses of
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). However, the deal was rejected and fell through, due to
Paramount Skydance initiating a definitive agreement to buy WBD on February 27, 2026. On March 6, 2026, it was revealed that
Byron Allen, owner of
Allen Media Group, had acquired a 11% stake in Starz, paying $25 million for 1.8 million shares previously held by
Steven Mnuchin. ==Divisions and units==