Some of the movies you enjoy likely came from Lionsgate.
Lionsgate is an entertainment corporation with ties to both movies and television.
It generates series for STARZ, but it also has shows that stream on other platforms like Netflix.
Considering that Lionsgate produces relatable and premium-quality material, you may wonder who owns the corporation.
Who Owns Lionsgate?
Lionsgate is a public company which means there are several shareholders who all own a piece of Lionsgate.
The largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group which owns 6.55% of the company.
That said, a few key people make up the Board of Directors.
They’re largely the ones who make decisions for the company.
These people include:
- Jon Feltheimer
- Michael Raymond Burns
- Mignon L. Clyburn
Feltheimer is the CEO and non-independent executive director of Lionsgate.
Burns is the executive vice chairman of Lionsgate.
Clyburn is the director of Lionsgate.
Does Lionsgate Own STARZ?
Considering all the material and content that Lionsgate publishes for STARZ, you may wonder if the corporation owns it.
Lionsgate did buy STARZ in 2016.
They saw the network as a chance to produce and distribute premium-quality television.
Around that time, many entertainment corporations were looking to get started with streaming.
Some chose to build their own streaming platforms.
In the case of Lionsgate, they decided to buy a network and then create a streaming network out of it.
You’ll find that a lot of the series that Lionsgate produces end up on STARZ.
What Movies Is Lionsgate Known For?
You likely know more Lionsgate films than you’re aware of.
The entertainment studio has been behind several box office successes.
Here are some of the movies that Lionsgate is best known for.
1. John Wick
One of the biggest franchises that doesn’t include a superhero is John Wick.
Starring Keanu Reeves, the movie follows the character of John Wick, a former assassin.
At the start of the film, Wick has retired from his days working as an assassin.
However, that all changes when his home gets broken into by a group of men.
The men kill his puppy which had been a gift from his wife who had recently died.
They also stole his vintage car.
Wick goes off on a vengeance kick and what follows is an action-packed film in a neo-noir style.
The movie was such a success that it sparked several sequels.
Lionsgate is also currently working on the fourth installment in the John Wick series.
If you’re looking for a movie that has tons of violence and action, look no further than John Wick.
2. The Hunger Games
Another big hit for Lionsgate was The Hunger Games series.
It’s based on a book series of the same name.
The film depicts a dystopian world where people each belong to a certain division.
Those divisions have specific purposes.
For example, one might be a mining community.
There’s also another group of people who live in the capital city.
They’re rich and don’t have to work much, if at all, since the others perform all the work for them.
Each year, the divisions come together for the drawing of the Hunger Games.
The Games pit each “tribute” against one another until there’s only one who survives.
The winner gets lauded as the champion and can join the others in the capital city.
The story revolves around the character of Katniss Everdeen.
Originally, she wasn’t chosen as a tribute.
Her younger sister was.
Rather than have her sister face the horrors of the Games, Katniss volunteers to play instead.
She works alongside another character, Peeta, to survive the ordeal.
The movies were quite successful and the studio was able to produce films based on each book.
The films starred Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen.
3. Saw
One of the biggest horror franchises in recent times is Saw.
The film is exceedingly simple in its premise.
Two men wake up in a locked bathroom.
Both have their ankles chained to a pipe.
The film slowly unpacks from there with new reveals that show how the characters connect.
It even goes beyond that to include connections to someone working for the mastermind who has the task of killing one of the prisoner’s families.
The hallmark of the Saw franchise is its gruesome violence.
The first film showcased someone having to cut off their own foot to get free.
The films only became more violent from there with their exploration of physical and psychological torture.
The lore also expanded.
Saw introduced a new type of horror genre.
It asked audiences to consider just what they’d be willing to do to survive or to save one’s family.
4. The Twilight Saga
Lionsgate Studios didn’t just focus on adult entertainment.
They also have a strong young adult audience.
The Hunger Games may have been one of the biggest box office hits for the studio in the young adult category, but it wasn’t the only one.
An even bigger franchise was The Twilight Saga.
Like The Hunger Games, The Twilight Saga is an adaptation of a book series of the same name.
It’s set in the state of Washington.
The main character, Bella Swann, moves there with her father.
She quickly discovers that all is not as it seems in the town of Forks.
She becomes fixated on a mysterious student who seems to become as fixated on her.
Bella discovers that the student is a vampire and lives with a family of vampires.
Her other friend, she also discovers, is from a line of werewolves.
There’s a bit of lore in the saga with different vampire sects and rules that they all follow, but the story is really about a love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob.
The film series made the books even more popular.
Fans started to split themselves into groups that were either Team Jacob or Team Edward.
Lionsgate Studios chose well in finding a young adult saga that became a box office hit.
5. La La Land
Lionsgate showed that it was able to produce Oscar-worthy content with the release of La La Land.
The film starred Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as its leads.
The film follows the two characters who meet and fall in love.
Gosling plays a pianist looking to make it big in Hollywood.
Stone plays a fledgling actress who is also looking to make it big in Hollywood.
The film follows their journey as they struggle to make something of their careers.
While both start to find success, they also realize that their career ambitions start to conflict with their relationship.
The movie is a musical and features singing and dancing similar to musicals during the golden age of musicals in Hollywood.
It won several Academy Awards such as:
- Best Actress
- Best Music
- Best Dancing
- Best Cinematography
6. Dirty Dancing
Another famous Lionsgate film is Dirty Dancing.
The film starred Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey as Johnny and Baby.
It’s a romantic film about the innocent and privileged character of Baby who falls in love with a dance instructor while on vacation.
Baby’s family has expectations for her to attend college, serve in the Peace Corps, and then find a wealthy husband.
When she encounters Johnny, however, all those expectations go out the window.
He chooses her as his dance partner, and the two immediately discover they have an undeniable connection.
When Baby’s family learns about her romantic entanglement, she’s forbidden to see Johnny again.
However, she vows to help Johnny win the dance championship that he’s entered.
The movie was one of the many coming-of-age stories in the 1980s.
It became a pop culture favorite that has inspired dance routines since.
7. American Psycho
A final film that showcases Lionsgate’s ability to produce premium films is American Psycho.
Long before Christian Bale became Batman, he starred as Patrick Bateman.
American Psycho was a nod to the thriller Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock.
In this version of the film, Bateman is a successful investment banking executive.
He’s also a serial killer with a few, peculiar, neuroses.
For example, he has an obsession with his own beauty and physique.
He spends a good amount of time either working out or perfecting his image.
He also has an obsession with a particular band and song which he uses as a topic of conversation with his victims.
Most of the violence depicted in the film are actually fantasies that Bateman possesses.
The film follows his spiraling descent into more and more violent fantasies.
The film is ultimately about the sexual insecurities of men and the pursuit of material goods to make up for their general apathy.
American Psycho is a cult favorite among horror fans to this day.
What Series Is Lionsgate Known For?
While Lionsgate has a reputation for producing premium films and films that know how to make a successful franchise, they also started producing premium-quality television shows.
In particular, once they acquired STARZ, they focused a good portion of their studio on producing high-quality television shows.
Here are some of the shows that Lionsgate is best known for.
1. Orange Is The New Black
One of Lionsgate’s biggest shows isn’t even on STARZ.
Orange is the New Black aired on Netflix and became an immediate hit among certain audiences.
The show follows Piper, played by Taylor Schilling, who ends up in jail due to her past association with a drug dealer.
She gets put in the same prison that her past lover is in.
It just so happens that her past lover is also the drug dealer who got her into prison in the first place.
The series depicts the unfairness, and often failure, of the penitentiary system.
However, the show is also a comedy with the antics of the other prisoners bringing some light to the otherwise dark show.
Piper struggles to keep her romantic ties to her fiancé while also struggling with renewed feelings for her former lover.
The show is also based on a memoir about a woman who spent a year in jail and her experiences there.
2. Mad Men
Another Lionsgate show is Mad Men which aired on AMC.
Mad Men is a period drama series that depicts the events of one of the most famous ad agencies in the 1960s.
In particular, it follows the story of Donald Draper, an ad executive at the agency.
Mad Men featured high-quality writing that dug deep into each of the show’s characters.
Each episode peeled back another layer of the characters.
Each season had its own theme.
The writers were able to show just enough to let viewers put all the pieces together for themselves without hitting them over the head with it.
It starred many celebrities who would go on to become even bigger household names.
Some of those involved in the show were:
- Jon Hamm
- January Jones
- Elizabeth Moss
- Christina Hendricks
The series ran for seven seasons.
3. Outlander
One of STARZ’s biggest hits through Lionsgate is Outlander.
This series is a historical drama with an emphasis on romance.
It all starts with the character of Claire, played by Caitriona Balfe, who is on a trip with her husband.
While her husband is off exploring some grounds, she ends up visiting some mysterious stones.
The stone teleports her back in time to the 1700s.
She ends up becoming a guest of a Scottish Lord.
There she meets another Scotsman by the name of Jamie Fraser.
The two end up getting married and falling in love.
However, the rest of the story revolves around the historical events that occur during that time.
Particularly, the two find themselves in a war between England versus Scotland.
Claire and Jamie don’t merely stay in Scotland, however.
They find themselves becoming involved in various historical events across the world.
STARZ based the show on an ongoing book series of the same name.
4. Black Sails
Another historical drama is Black Sails.
It’s a prequel to the famous story Treasure Island.
The show follows the infamous Captain Flint and Long-John Silver before the events of Treasure Island.
The show also does its part in showcasing the historical events that took place on the pirate island of Nassau.
It features the eventual takeover from English forces and the installment of a governor who brought the island under the King’s heel.
Black Sails gives a more historically-accurate version of pirates and how they organized themselves.
Besides being more or less historically accurate, fans also appreciated that the lead character, Captain Flint, was a bisexual man.
The series starred Toby Stephens as Flint and Luke Arnold as Long-John Silver.
5. Nashville
A final show that Lionsgate saw great success with was Nashville.
This show depicted the lives of a few fictitious country singers.
The main characters were Rayna James, played by Connie Britton, and Juliette Barnes, played by Hayden Panettiere.
The show begins with James’ star starting to fade as she grows older while Barnes, a new singer, starts to rise.
The show essentially shows the characters and their lives as they struggle to make it big and maintain their spotlight while the industry changes around them.
It also tackles relationships and family struggles.
The show ran for six seasons.
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