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Cinema Center Films

Cinema Center Films, the theatrical film production arm of the CBS television network, was founded in 1967.   Although it existed for only five brief years and can therefore hardly qualify as an outright success, it did score some noticeable box office successes, and produced such quality films as Little Big Man, A Man Called Horse, Prime Cut and Rio Lobo.

The unit’s first film was With Six You Get Egg Roll, a Doris Day vehicle which was to prove to be the comedy actress’s last film role.   Gorden L. Stulberg was the unit’s president for much of its existence.   In 1971, as the unit marked its fourth anniversary, he commented on the difficulties it had faced.   'The operation started just at the time that top stars started getting a million dollars a picture and when some directors were going wild and doubling their budgets,' he said.   'We have to pay huge prices to get stars like Jack Lemmon, John Wayne, Lee Marvin and Steve McQueen.   We need names like those to enter the film market in an important way.   I think we succeeded.   Variety said Cinema Center was the sixth moneymaker in 1970, ahead of two of the major companies.   That proved we captured a large percentage of the market.'

Cinema Center also put a few industry noses out of joint with the high wages it paid stars to appear in its films, and in 1971other major studios began legal action against it for unfair competition.   For a while though its strategy appeared to be paying off, and the company realised some healthy returns on its investments.   Little Big Man, which cost $9 million to produce, realised a respectable $23 million; The Reivers made $12 million from a budget of $5.5 million, while Big Jake and A Man Called Horse, both also made $12 million, but with a smaller budget of $4 million each.

Amongst these successes, however, there were a few too many duds, and Wall Street sources estimated a $10 million dollar loss for Cinema Center in 1971.    The unit was shut down in January 1972.   Its last release was the animated Peanuts musical, Snoopy Come Home.   Today the distribution rights for the unit’s films belong to Paramount Pictures for home entertainment and theatrical release, and with CBS Paramount Television for TV distribution.

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Snoopy Come Home [MORE] [ADD]

Something Big [MORE] [ADD]

Rio Lobo [MORE] [ADD]

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Monte Walsh [MORE] [ADD]

The Reivers [MORE] [ADD]

With Six You Get Eggroll [MORE] [ADD]