Castle Rock Entertainment

Castle Rock Entertainment was founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, actor and director Rob Reiner, Andy Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn, with Columbia Pictures as their original strategic partner. Castle Rock's nurturing of such talent, including (most notably) Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, made it one of the most successful production companies of the 1990s. Early in the studio's history, Nelson Entertainment co-financed their films until 1991, when New Line Cinema took over their duties (after Nelson was sold to New Line). On Christmas Day 1993, Castle Rock was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System and would become a part of Time Warner when the two along with New Line Cinema merged with them on October 10, 1996. In 1999, Warner Bros. Pictures gained distribution rights from Sony Pictures Entertainment/Columbia Pictures. Castle Rock's first release was Winter People in 1989, but no logo was used until When Harry Met Sally.... Castle Rock is currently a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Entertainment. unit of Time Warner. The home media rights to the pre-1994 Castle Rock library (which was part of Nelson's library) were sold to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired these rights in January 1999 after purchasing the pre-March 31, 1996 PolyGram library (including their back library) (exceptions are A Few Good Men, In the Line of Fire and North, co-productions with Columbia Pictures that remained with the studio). Warner Bros. Television does own the television rights to most Castle Rock films. The post-1994 library is owned by Warner Bros. (except for distribution rights of The Story of Us, The Last Days of Disco and international rights to The American President, all of which are owned by Universal Studios, the original distributor). Castle Rock retains the copyright to nearly all of its films.