United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, was an American production and distribution company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studio was premised on allowing actors to control their own interests, rather than being dependent upon commercial studios.[2] UA was repeatedly bought, sold, and restructured over the ensuing century. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million ($1 billion today).[3]
 | |
| United Artists Digital Studios | |
| Type | Label |
| Industry | Film Television |
| Founded | February 5, 1919 in Hollywood, California, United States |
| Founders | |
| Defunct | March 1, 2020 |
| Fate | Operations folded into MGM |
| Successor | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Headquarters | Beverly Hills, California, United States |
Key people | Kevin Conroy (President of Digital & New Platforms at MGM)[1] |
| Products | Motion pictures TV series |
| Parent | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Amazon) |
On September 22, 2014, MGM acquired a controlling interest in entertainment companies One Three Media and Lightworkers Media, then merged them to revive United Artists' television production unit as United Artists Media Group (UAMG). However, on December 14 of the following year, MGM wholly acquired UAMG and folded it into MGM Television.[4]
United Artists was briefly revived again in 2018 as United Artists Digital Studios, being launched along with the Stargate Origins web series and the Stargate Command streaming service. In December 2019 following the closure of Stargate Command, by early 2020 the original UA incarnation was folded, this time permanently, into MGM.
Mirror, the joint distribution venture between MGM and Annapurna Pictures, was subsequently rebranded as United Artists Releasing in early February 2019, in honor of its 100th anniversary, and the UA name lived on in that company for 4 years, until 2023 when it was folded again into MGM, effectively ending United Artists as a functioning company.