Amblin Entertainment

Amblin Entertainment, Inc., formerly named Amblin Productions and Steven Spielberg Productions, is an American film production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg, and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1980. Its headquarters are located in Bungalow 477 of the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City, California. It distributes all of the films from Amblin Partners under the Amblin Entertainment banner.

Overview
Amblin is named after Spielberg's first commercially released film, Amblin' (1968), a short independent film about a man and woman hitchhiking through the desert. Costing $15,000 to produce, it was shown for Universal Studios and won Spielberg more directing roles. Although Amblin is an independent production company, Universal distributes many Amblin productions, and Amblin operates out of a building on the Universal lot.

Its logo features the silhouette of E.T. riding in Elliott's bicycle basket flying in front of the moon from the 1982 movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The company dates back to 1969, and it was properly incorporated in 1970. On July 14, 1975, Spielberg signed a four-picture agreement with Universal Pictures to produce its feature films through its Amblin label, to build upon the success of its first two theatrical pictures The Sugarland Express and Jaws.

Amblin first produced its film Continental Divide in 1981, with Steven Spielberg serving as executive producer. Founding partners Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall of Amblin caught the attention of film producer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1982, of which they both produced Poltergeist, which was directed by filmmaker Tobe Hooper. The following week, Kathleen Kennedy, another founding partner of Amblin produced the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which ended up being the highest-grossing film of the year.

In 1983, one of the founding partners produced Twilight Zone: The Movie. Amblin went on to produce the most successful films, like Gremlins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and the Back to the Future trilogy.

In 1985, Spielberg and Don Bluth started a partnership to produce animated feature films. The only two films that were made from the Spielberg-Bluth deal were An American Tail (1986) and The Land Before Time (1988).

On November 5, 1986, Walt Disney Pictures and Amblin Entertainment teamed up to make Who Framed Roger Rabbit, its first collaboration of such after collaborations working with Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, which had a pre-existing joint deal, which was directed by Robert Zemeckis, and it was slated for a G-rated feature, but it was upped to a PG-rated feature under the Touchstone Pictures label.

In 1987, Amblin Entertainment had named Brad Globe, former head of Lorimar's marketing division, as vice president of marketing at the production company, and Globe himself would be joined by two special consultants, which were Martin J. Lewy and Gerry Lewis, and will work closely with the marketing department of the companies that released Amblin's product.

In 1989, a dispute over film-making budgets caused Spielberg and Bluth to part ways, and Amblin's animation department was rebranded to Amblimation, which was headquartered in London. The only three films that were released under the Amblimation banner were An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991), We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story (1993) and Balto (1995). A fourth film, an animated film adaptation of Cats, was in development, but it was cancelled following the studio's closure in 1997.

The same year, Amblin signed a deal with Turner Network Television to produce TV movies.

In 1992, Amblin launched a visual effects studio Amblin Imaging, headed by visual effects pioneer John Gross. It was later shut down in 1995.

In 1991, founding partner Frank Marshall left the company after 10 years. The next year, Kathleen Kennedy left the company.

In 1989, they set up an animated unit Amblimation. It was defunct in 1997 and was transferred to DreamWorks Animation. In 1993, Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald joined the company.

On June 21, 2021, it was announced that Amblin Entertainment signed a deal with Netflix to release multiple new feature films for the streaming service. Under the deal, Amblin is expected to produce at least two films a year for Netflix for an unspecified number of years. It is possible that Spielberg may even direct some of the projects.

Live-action films

 * E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
 * Gremlins (1984)
 * The Goonies (1985)
 * Back to the Future (1985)
 * The Color Purple (1985)
 * Back to the Future II (1989)
 * Back to the Future (1990)
 * Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
 * Jurassic Park (1993)
 * The Flintstones (1994)
 * Casper (1995)
 * Twister (1996)
 * The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
 * Men in Black (1997)
 * Deep Impact (1998) (distributed by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * Small Soldiers (1998) (distributed by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * Saving Private Ryan (1998) (distributed by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * In Dreams (1999) (distributed by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * Jurassic Park III (2001)
 * Men in Black II (2002)
 * Catch Me If You Can (2002) (distributed by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * The Terminal (2004) (distributed by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * Munich (2005) (distributed by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * War Horse (2011) (produced by DreamWorks Pictures
 * Lincoln (2012) (produced by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) (produced by DreamWorks Pictures)
 * Jurassic World (2015)
 * Bridge of Spies (2015) (produced by DreamWorks Pictures and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the first DreamWorks live-action film with distributed by 20th Century Fox)
 * The BFG (2016)
 * A Dog's Purpose (2017)
 * The Post (2017) (the last DreamWorks live-action film with distributed by 20th Century Fox)
 * Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
 * Ready Player One (2018)
 * The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)
 * A Dog's Journey (2019)
 * Men in Black: International (2019)
 * The Turning (2020) (produced by DreamWorks Pictures and distributed Universal Pictures, the first DreamWorks live-action film buys Universal)
 * Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)
 * The Fabelmans (2022)
 * Maestro (2023)
 * The Color Purple (2023)
 * Twisters (2024)

Animated films

 * An American Tail (1986)
 * Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
 * The Land Before Time (1988)
 * An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
 * We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993)
 * Balto (1995)
 * Monster House (2006) (produced by ImageMovers and distributed by Columbia Pictures)
 * The Adventures of Tintin (2011) (produced by Nickelodeon Movies, WingNut Films and The Kennedy/Marshall Company and distributed by Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures)
 * Kung Fu Wa!: The Movie (2024) (produced by Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, DreamWorks Animation, Reliance Entertainment, Sparkle Roll Media, Little Witch Pictures, Timeless Films, Mad Solar Productions, Tencent Pictures, Align, GFM Animation, HB Wink Animation, Aniventure and Cinesite and distributed by Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures)

Distribution

 * Universal Pictures (1981-present)
 * Warner Bros. Pictures (1984-present)
 * Paramount Pictures (1985-present)
 * Columbia Pictures (1997-present)