Revolution Studios Distribution Company, LLC (operating as Revolution Studios) is an American independent motion picture and foreign sales company headed by Chief Executive Officer Scott Hemming, founded by Joe Roth on January 12, 2000, and based in Los Angeles, California.
The company focuses primarily on the distribution, remake, and sequel rights to titles in its library, which it continues to add to through acquisitions and new productions.
Company history On January 12, 2000, after a successful run at Walt Disney Studios, and his time at 20th Century Fox and Caravan Pictures, Joe Roth left Disney, to create a yet-unnamed venture. On February 17, 2000, Roth signed an agreement with actress Julia Roberts to star in their films as well as producing through their Shoelace Productions banner.
On June 7, 2000, Roth officially decided to name his new venture Revolution Studios (the name coming from the song by The Beatles, as he has admitted to being a lifelong fan of the band) and announced that Tomcats would be the first film to be produced by the studio. On the same day, Revolution Studios entered into an agreement with Sony Pictures (which also owned a stake in the company) to distribute and market Revolution Studios' films. Roth owned the controlling interest in Revolution Studios. Other equity owners included Hollywood executives Todd Garner, Rob Moore, Tom Sherak and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, as well as Starz Entertainment and 20th Century Fox. Starz owned exclusive cable distribution rights, with broadcast television licenses going to Fox. The company sold their films to various distributors in Germany, Italy, Japan, Scandinavia, Portugal and Israel.
Soon afterwards, the company expanded into television production, under the moniker Revolution Television, with Queens Supreme as its first product, followed by a deal with American Girl.
On January 5, 2005, Revolution Studios signed a television syndication distribution deal with Debmar-Mercury to market their library to syndication.
In August 2006, Revolution Studios announced that it had licensed to Universal Pictures the sequel rights to its comic-book-inspired hit Hellboy (2004). Universal released Hellboy II: The Golden Army in the United States in 2008.
Coinciding with the end of its six-year distribution deal with Sony in 2007, Revolution Studios turned its attention to exploiting the remake, sequel and television rights to films in its library. Roth suddenly decided to move into a producing deal with Sony Pictures to start his own production company.
Revolution Studios produced a sitcom based on its comedy feature Are We There Yet?, which ran from June 1, 2010 to March 2, 2013 on TBS, as well as a sitcom adaptation of Anger Management, which ran from June 28, 2012 to December 22, 2014 on FX.
In June 2014, Roth announced that he had sold Revolution Studios to funds managed by Fortress Investment Group for roughly $250 million. Roth continues to serve as a strategic adviser and develops television projects for the Revolution Studios through a first-look deal. Concurrent with the sale, former Chief Operating Officer Vince Totino was promoted to CEO, and former finance executive Scott Hemming was named COO.
After the sale, the newly recapitalized Revolution Studios began adding to its library through a series of acquisitions. In October 2014, Revolution Studios acquired the foreign rights and copyrights of Morgan Creek Productions.
In October 2015, Revolution Studios acquired Cross Creek Pictures' 50% interests in feature films Black Swan and The Ides of March. Later that month, Revolution Studios purchased the eight-film Cold Spring Pictures film library, including the 2009 Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award winner Up in the Air.
Also in 2015, Revolution Studios announced a partnership with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment to produce non-theatrical sequels, prequels, or other spin-offs based on the titles in Revolution Studios' library.
In June 2016, Revolution Studios expanded its library to 126 films when it acquired worldwide rights to five films produced by Graham King's GK Films: Hugo, The Tourist, Edge of Darkness, The Rum Diary and The Young Victoria. The rights were previously held by Dallas-based Tango Films. In January 2017, Revolution Studios returned to film production with their release XXX: Return of Xander Cage, the company's first film since 2007's The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep.
In January 2017, Content Partners LLC and its affiliate CP Enterprises acquired Revolution Studios from investment funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group for an undisclosed price.
Corporate partnerships In October 2014, Revolution Studios forged a global licensing pact with Miramax, wherein Miramax would sell the worldwide television and digital distribution rights to Revolution Studios' library. Miramax has been handling U.S. sales of the Revolution Studios library since June 2012.
In May 2016, Revolution Studios announced that it had made a seven-figure investment for a stake in Spanish-language digital services company Latin Everywhere, agreeing to license Spanish-dubbed versions of its library titles to Latin Everywhere's video streaming platform Pongalo (Spanish for "play it").
In October 2019, Revolution Studios signed a worldwide television and digital distribution deal with Sony Pictures Television, covering the Revolution Studios and Morgan Creek libraries.
Films Here is a list of films independently produced by Revolution Studios:
Theatrical films Release date Title Notes Budget Gross (worldwide) March 30, 2001 Tomcats co-production with Eagle Cove Entertainment $11 million $23,430,766 June 1, 2001 The Animal co-production with Happy Madison Productions $47 million $84,772,742 July 20, 2001 America's Sweethearts co-production with Face Productions, Roth-Arnold Productions and Shoelace Productions $46 million $138,191,428 November 2, 2001 The One co-production with Hard Eight Pictures $49 million $72,689,126 December 28, 2001 Black Hawk Down co-production with Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Scott Free Productions $92 million $172,989,651 May 10, 2002 The New Guy $13 million $31,167,388 August 2, 2002 The Master of Disguise co-production with Happy Madison Productions $16 million $43,411,001 August 9, 2002 XXX co-production with Original Film $70 million $277,448,382 September 13, 2002 Stealing Harvard co-production with Imagine Entertainment $25 million $14,277,032 November 1, 2002 Punch-Drunk Love co-production with New Line Cinema $25 million $24,665,649 December 13, 2002 Maid in Manhattan co-production with Red Om Films $55 million $154,906,693 January 24, 2003 Darkness Falls co-production with Distant Corners $11 million $47,488,536 March 7, 2003 Tears of the Sun co-production with Cheyenne Enterprises $75 million $86,468,162 April 11, 2003 Anger Management co-production with Happy Madison Productions $75 million $195,745,823 May 9, 2003 Daddy Day Care co-production with Davis Entertainment $69 million $164,433,867 June 13, 2003 Hollywood Homicide $75 million $51,142,659 August 1, 2003 Gigli co-production with City Light Films and Casey Silver Productions $75 million $7,266,209 October 24, 2003 Radio co-production with Tollin/Robbins Productions $35 million $53,293,628 November 26, 2003 The Missing co-production with Imagine Entertainment $60 million $38,364,277 December 19, 2003 Mona Lisa Smile co-production with Red Om Films $65 million $141,337,989 December 25, 2003 Peter Pan studio credit, global TV rights and international sales in Scandinavia, Portugal and Israel co-production with Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Red Wagon Entertainment and Allied Stars Ltd. $130 million $121,975,011 April 2, 2004 Hellboy co-production with Lawrence Gordon Productions and Dark Horse Entertainment $66 million $99,318,987 April 23, 2004 13 Going on 30 $37 million $96,455,697 June 23, 2004 White Chicks co-production with Wayans Bros. Entertainment $37 million $113,086,475 August 6, 2004 Little Black Book $35 million $22,034,832 September 24, 2004 The Forgotten co-production with The Jinks/Cohen Company $42 million $117,592,831 November 24, 2004 Christmas with the Kranks co-production with 1492 Pictures $60 million $96,572,480 January 21, 2005 Are We There Yet? co-production with Cube Vision $32 million $97,918,663 February 25, 2005 Man of the House $40 million $21,577,624 April 29, 2005 XXX: State of the Union co-production with Original Film $87 million $71,022,693 September 9, 2005 An Unfinished Life co-production with Miramax Films, Initial Entertainment Group and The Ladd Company $30 million $18,618,284 October 14, 2005 The Fog $18 million $46,201,432 October 21, 2005 The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio co-production with DreamWorks Pictures and ImageMovers $12 million $689,028 November 23, 2005 Rent co-production with 1492 Pictures and Tribeca Productions $40 million $31,670,620 February 17, 2006 Freedomland co-production with Scott Rudin Productions $30 million $14,655,628 April 7, 2006 The Benchwarmers co-production with Happy Madison Productions $33 million $64,957,291 June 23, 2006 Click co-production with Columbia Pictures, Happy Madison Productions and Original Film $82.5 million $237,681,299 July 14, 2006 Little Man co-production with Wayans Bros. Entertainment $64 million $101,595,121 August 11, 2006 Zoom co-production with Team Todd Films and Boxing Cat Films $35 million $12,506,188 December 20, 2006 Rocky Balboa co-production with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures $24 million $155,721,132 April 4, 2007 Are We Done Yet? co-production with RKO Pictures and Cube Vision $28 million $58,388,068 April 13, 2007 Perfect Stranger $60 million $73,090,611 April 27, 2007 Next co-production with Saturn Films, Virtual Studios and Initial Entertainment Group; distributed by Paramount Pictures $70 million $76,066,841 August 8, 2007 Daddy Day Camp co-production with TriStar Pictures, Davis Entertainment and Blue Star Entertainment $6 million $18,197,398 September 7, 2007 The Brothers Solomon co-production with Carsey-Werner Productions; theatrically distributed by Screen Gems $10 million $1,035,056 October 12, 2007 Across the Universe co-production with Team Todd $45 million $29,367,143 December 25, 2007 The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep co-production with Walden Media, Beacon Pictures and Ecosse Pictures $40 million $103,071,443 January 20, 2017 XXX: Return of Xander Cage co-production with Paramount Pictures, One Race Films and Roth/Kirschenbaum Films $85 million $338,678,346
Direct-to-video films Release date Title Notes October 28, 2006 Hellboy: Sword of Storms co-production with Film Roman March 17, 2007 Hellboy: Blood and Iron co-production with Film Roman January 29, 2019 Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls co-production with Universal 1440 Entertainment February 5, 2019 Grand-Daddy Day Care co-production with Universal 1440 Entertainment
Television Start dateEnd dateTitleNetworkNotesSeasonsEpisodesJanuary 10, 2003May 16, 2003Queens SupremeCBSas Revolution Television; co-production with Red Om Films, Shoelace Productions, Shadowland Productions, CBS Productions and Spelling Television113June 2, 2010March 1, 2013Are We There Yet?TBSco-production with 5914 Productions, Ltd., Cube Vision and Debmar-Mercury3100April 11, 2011June 3, 2011Drew Carey's Improv-A-GanzaGSNas Revolution Television; co-production with Three Foot Giant Productions and International Mammoth Television 140November 29, 2011July 23, 2012Una Maid en ManhattanTelemundoco-production with Sony Pictures Television163June 28, 2012December 22, 2014Anger ManagementFXco-production with Mohawk Productions, Estevez/Sheen Productions, Twisted Television, Debmar-Mercury and Lionsgate Television2100
Television films/specials