Lions Gate Films was formed in 1997 by Frank Giustra, a Vancouver investment banker hoping to capitalize on the growing film industry in his home town. The company bought a number of small production facilities and distributors, including Montreal-based Cinepix Film Productions, or CFP.
Its first major box office success was American Psycho in 2000, which began a trend of producing and distributing films far too controversial for the major American studios. Other notable films include included Affliction, Gods and Monsters, Dogma, and the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which became the studio's highest grossing film.
Lionsgate (now known as one word), along with MGM and Viacom, will launch a new pay TV movie channel, that will rival HBO and Showtime.[4]
Giustra named the company after a hometown landmark - Vancouver's Lions' Gate Bridge, which links downtown to the North Shore.
The company is unrelated to Lion's Gate, the now-defunct Los Angeles-based studio and production company run by filmmaker Robert Altman in the 1970s. By coincidence, it had been named after the same bridge in Vancouver, where Altman shot his 1969 feature, That Cold Day in the Park.
The Lionsgate studio properties in Canada were sold to a private company and are now called North Shore Studios, and no longer have an affiliation with Lionsgate Entertainment. In 2006, the company acquired land in Rio Rancho, New Mexico for construction of a new studio facility.
Video properties currently owned by Lionsgate Home Entertainment include those from Family Home Entertainment, Vestron Video, Lightning Video (itself a Vestron company), and Magnum Entertainment.
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