Universal Cinema

Universal Cinema was launched in 2000 as Universal Movies, to not only expand the operations of Universal LLC but as a way to compete with other movie channels. It was initially planned in 1998 to be launched in 1999 as Universal Showcase Theater, a joint venture between Sony and Universal LLC.

However, Sony announced that they will drop out of the channel, selling their 50% stake to Universal in early 1999. And because the " Showcase Theater" name can't be used for the channel due to that, they renamed the channel to Universal Movie Channel. But then in late 1999,They decided to shorten the name of the channel to Universal Movies. 2 years after The Universal Company Launched, they launched Universal Movies in other countries as Universal Cinema, they then thought that the Cinema name could be in the U.S, so they renamed the channel to Universal Cinema, they also did that to reference to Sky Movies when that was renamed to Sky Cinema.