 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Motion pictures Television |
| Founded | December 12, 1969; 55 years ago (1969-12-12) |
| Founder | Francis Ford Coppola George Lucas |
| Headquarters | , United States |
| Owner | Francis Ford Coppola Roman Coppola Sofia Coppola |
| Website | zoetrope |
American Zoetrope (also known asOmni Zoetrope from 1977 to 1980 andZoetrope Studios from 1980 until 1991) is a privately run American film production company, centered inSan Francisco, California and founded byFrancis Ford Coppola andGeorge Lucas.
Opened on December 12, 1969,[1] the studio has produced not only the films of Coppola (includingApocalypse Now,Bram Stoker's Dracula andTetro), but also George Lucas's pre-Star Wars filmsTHX 1138 andAmerican Graffiti, as well as many others by avant-garde directors such asJean-Luc Godard,Akira Kurosawa,Wim Wenders andGodfrey Reggio. American Zoetrope was an early adopter of digital filmmaking, including some of the earliest uses ofHDTV.[2]
Four films produced by American Zoetrope are included in theAmerican Film Institute's Top 100 Films. American Zoetrope-produced films have received 15Academy Awards and 68 nominations.
Initially located in a warehouse at 827[3][4][5]Folsom Street on the second floor ofThe Automatt building, the company's headquarters have, since 1972,[6] been in the historicSentinel Building, at 916Kearny Street inSan Francisco'sNorth Beach neighborhood.
Coppola named the studio after azoetrope he was given in the late 1960s by the filmmaker and collector of early film devices, Mogens Skot-Hansen.[7] "Zoetrope" is also the name by which Coppola's quarterly fiction magazine,Zoetrope: All-Story, is often known.
The company was initially based atWarner Bros.-Seven Arts, where he had run until a dispute had emerged in 1970, a year beforeTHX 1138 was released.[8]
In 1972, Coppola partnered withPeter Bogdanovich andWilliam Friedkin to set upThe Directors Company atParamount Pictures, which was affiliated with Zoetrope, andThe Conversation was one of the films that came out of the deal.[9] When the effort failed, the company bought out an interest in New York-based film distributor Cinema 5.[10] He later started a new company Coppola-Cinema 7 in 1975, after talks with Cinema 7 failed and set up with a major distributor.[11]
In 1980, the company boughtGeneral Service Studios inHollywood,California, and becameZoetrope Studios, to produce and distribute films, as did laterDreamWorks studio.[12][13]
Zoetrope as a whole faced bankruptcy between 1983 and 1992 after losing money onOne from the Heart, and shut down its production studio in Hollywood[14][15][16] and returned to being a production company in San Francisco, initially retaining theZoetrope Studios name, the studio readopting theAmerican Zoetrope name in 1991 with a first-look deal atColumbia Pictures, andBram Stoker's Dracula became the first film to come out of the pact.[17] Coppola had sold the studio in 1984 toThe Singer Family and rechristened as Hollywood Center Studios.[12]
The studio also provided funding for Commercial Pictures, a studio formed byRoman Coppola andSofia Coppola in 1988, who had produced low-budget feature films, most notablyClownhouse andThe Spirit of '76.[18] In the mid-1990s, the company entered into TV movies and miniseries, signing a contract with RHI Entertainment to produce material.[12] In 1997, the company signed a deal withPolyGram Television to finance television projects.[19]
In 1999, it signed a deal withMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for a first-look financing and production agreement.[20] In 2000, it signed a ten-year financing pact with VCL Film + Medien to handle foreign sales of their own titles.[21]
By 2007, ownership of American Zoetrope had been passed to Coppola's son and daughter, directorsRoman Coppola andSofia Coppola.[22]
In 2010, Lionsgate announced a deal to distribute American Zoetrope films, including classics likeThe Conversation andApocalypse Now, in North America on DVD, Blu-ray, electronic-sell-through, VOD as well as broadcast distribution rights.[23] The only movies from the Coppola canon that will not be released as part of the pact areThe Godfather trilogy, which is owned by Paramount.[24]
Zoetrope.com, the Coppola family's website, was created around 1996[25] and became an online community for writers. In 2016, Francis Ford Coppola announced its relaunch as a "virtual studio".[26]
In 2024, American Zoetrope earned its firstTony Award for Best Musical as one of the producers of the 2023 stage musical adaptation ofThe Outsiders.[27]
| Year | Title | Creator | Company | Credit | Network | Notes | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | The Outsiders | characters by: S.E. Hinton developed by: S.E. Hinton Joe Byrne Jeb Rosebrook | Zoetrope Studios | Production Company | Fox | co-production with Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment | |
| 1997 | The Odyssey | Andrei Konchalovsky based onOdyssey by: Homer | American Zoetrope | Production Company (as American Zoetrope San Francisco) | NBC | miniseries; co-production withHallmark Entertainment | [28] |
| 1998 | Moby Dick | Anton Diether Franc Roddam Benedict Fitzgerald based onMoby-Dick by: Herman Melville | Production Company | USA Network | miniseries; co-production withHallmark Entertainment,Nine Network Australia and USA Pictures | [28] | |
| 1998–2001 | First Wave | Chris Brancato | Sci-Fi Channel | co-production withSugar Entertainment | [28] | ||
| 2003 | Platinum | John Ridley Sofia Coppola | UPN | co-production withThe Greenblatt/Janollari Studio,International Famous Players Radio Picture Corporation andEye Productions | [36] | ||
| 2004–2007 | The 4400 | René Echevarria Scott Peters | USA Network | co-production withRenegade 83,Viacom Productions (season 1),Paramount Network Television (season 2) andCBS Paramount Network Television (seasons 3–4) | |||
| 2014–2018 | Mozart in the Jungle | based on Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music by: Blair Tindall developed by: Roman Coppola Jason Schwartzman Alex Timbers Paul Weitz | Amazon Video | co-production with Depth of Field, Picrow andAmazon Studios | [28] |
In the building lobby, Coppola operates a small Italiancafé, Cafe Zoetrope, featuringInglenook Estate wine and memorabilia from his films.[37] Earlier, the building had been the location ofEnrico Banducci's "hungry i" nightclub.
The neighborhood is well known for its cafes and its writers. Coppola wrote much of the screenplay forThe Godfather in the nearbyCaffe Trieste andLawrence Ferlinghetti'sCity Lights Books is located up Columbus Avenue from the Sentinel Building.
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