Loews Cineplex Entertainment

Loew's Theatre in Toronto, Canada, in 1945

Loew's Theatres Incorporated was founded in 1904 in Cincinnati, Ohio, by entrepreneur Marcus Loew. Loew founded a chain of nickelodeon theaters which showed short silent films in storefront locations. Soon the successful enterprise grew to include deluxe vaudeville houses and finally lavish movie palaces. Loew's theaters were found in cities from coast-to-coast, but primarily in East Coast and Midwest states.

To provide quality films for his theaters, Loew founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM) in 1924, by merging the earlier firms Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Productions. Loew's Incorporated served as distribution arm and parent company for the studio until the two were forced to separate by the 1948 US Supreme Court ruling United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. The two companies officially split in 1959.

In 1985, when federal regulations had been relaxed, Tri-Star Pictures, then a joint venture co-owned by The Coca-Cola Company (also owners of Columbia Pictures at the time) CBS, and Time Inc.'s HBO, acquired the Loews theater chain from Loews Corporation, the successor company to the original firm founded by Marcus Loew. Loews Corporation by this time was a holding company owned by brothers Robert and Laurence Tisch highly diversified in non-entertainment business interests ranging from hotels to insurance. CBS left Tri-Star in 1985, and HBO left the venture and Tri-Star merged with Columbia Pictures in 1987, resulting in the formation of Columbia Pictures Entertainment.

Upon the full acquisition of Tri-Star by Columbia Pictures, and when Columbia was bought from Coca-Cola by Sony in 1989, Sony inherited the theaters as well. For a while, Loews operated under the Sony Theaters banner.

In 1994, Sony partnered with Magic Johnson to form Magic Johnson Theaters, a mini-chain of theaters specifically geared toward the inner cities, particularly in Los Angeles. A year before, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound was installed in several theaters, since the parent company used it to promote Sony's cinema sound division, which eventually shut down in 2002.

In 1998, Cineplex Odeon Corporation merged with Loews Theaters to form Loews Cineplex Entertainment. The combined company was one of the largest movie exhibitors in the world, with theaters in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and Spain. The company was forced to sell of its newly acquired subsidiary, Cineplex Odeon Films, to Alliance Atlantis.[1] In 2001, though, the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In 2002, Onex Corporation and Oaktree Capital Management acquired Loews Cineplex. In 2004, they sold Loews to a private group of investors which included the Carlyle Group. Onex retained the Canadian Loews Cineplex and merged it with Galaxy Cinemas to form Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund.

In 2005, AMC Theatres announced that it would merge with Loews Cineplex Entertainment and that the merged company would adopt the AMC name.[2] At the time of the merger, Loews operated 198 theaters with 2,235 screens. Many theaters were rebranded as AMC Loews, until the Loews name was phased out in 2017.

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  Loews Theatre, Times Square, New York City, 2005
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  Loews Theatre in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2007
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  Loews Alderwood 16 in Lynnwood, Washington, opened in March 2005 before the merger with AMC Theatres
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  Cinéma Cineplex Odeon in Sainte-Foy, Quebec, was one of the Cineplex Odeon-branded theatres built by Loews Cineplex in Canada in the early 2000s prior to its merger by Galaxy Cinemas

• Loew's Wonder Theaters
• United States v. Loew's Inc., a 1962 Supreme Court decision on block booking
• Cineplex Entertainment

• Sobel, Robert. "Marcus Loew: An Artist in Spite of Himself". The entrepreneurs : explorations within the American business tradition. Weybright and Talley. ISBN 0-679-40064-8.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Loew's theatres.

• Official website