Sony Pictures Entertainment

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Background

In the midst of and following an early '80s global recession, Sony developed the compact disc and acquired The CBS Records Group as its music division and, on November 8, 1989, Columbia Pictures Entertainment, founded on December 21, 1987, as a spinoff from The Coca-Cola Company, which Columbia's entertainment businesses were acquired by TriStar Pictures (which Coca-Cola owned 39.6% of), as its film and television division, which would be renamed as Sony Pictures Entertainment on August 7, 1991. Sony also acquired the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company on November 9, 1989 after hiring Peter Guber and Jon Peters to run CPE.

Sony Pictures Entertainment consists of various film and television studios. The company currently includes the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group: Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (Triumph Films, Destination Films, Stage 6 Films, and Affirm Films) for film production and distribution. The motion picture group also includes its home entertainment division, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for home media distribution. SPE also owns its television division Sony Pictures Television for television production and distribution and with other television companies under its umbrella such as: Embassy Row, Left Bank Pictures, Starling and Huaso, among others. Also included are: the Sony Pictures Studios, Sony Pictures Worldwide Fulfillment, Madison Gate Records, and more. Today, Sony Pictures Entertainment is a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment.

1st Logo (1992)

Nickname: "The First Bars"

Logo: On a black background, we see a blue segmented parallelogram with a blue line below. The right side of the parallelogram thickens and fill up with orange-white glare. From the blue line below, "SONY" and "PICTURES" emerge from the top and the bottom of it respectively. The line then disappears.

FX/SFX: The parallelogram filling up with glare, the company name emerging.

Music/Sounds: The theme of the video.

Availability: Extinct. This was only seen on a video showing their plans for Culver City.

Editor's Note: Perhaps the earliest known appearance of the SPE bars onscreen. Unlike the later SPE bars, this has 12 bars, however, later versions of the SPE bars have 11 or 10 bars.

2nd Logo (2009)

Logo: We pan down from a 3D model of the SPE bars, until we stop on a comfortable distance to reveal the text "SONY PICTURES" set in its corporate font, with a tiny registered symbol next to it. The white part of the logo shines.

FX/SFX: The camera panning down, and the shining.

Music/Sounds: A deep one-note synth pad, similar to the start of the 1987 United Artists logo.

Availability: Ultra rare. Only seen on a 2009 reel from the company.

Editor's Note: None.

3rd Logo (August 6, 2021- )

Nicknames: "The Shining Bars", "Ultra Majestic Sony Pictures Bars", "SPE Bars", "The SPE Parallelogram", "The Sped-Up Bars", "The Sped-Up SPE Parallelogram", "The Bars of Heaven", "The Bars of Bootleg"

Logo: We start with the Sony logo. Then, the logo transitions to a shortened and sped-up version of the Sony Pictures Home Entertainment logo, but with higher saturation and no "HOME ENTERTAINMENT" text and line.

Closing Variant: The superimposed closing variant features a print version of the SPE logo in white.

Other Variants: On the trailer for The Man from Toronto (2022), the logo is beside the Netflix and BRON logos, starting when the logo stops shining. Also, starting with this variant, the logo isn't saturated.

FX/SFX: Essentially a shortened version of the SPHE logo.

Music/Sounds: An abridged version of the SPHE logo music, starting when the logo zooms in.

Availability: Brand new. The opening version was first seen on 2021's Cinderella, released on September 3, 2021. The closing version debuted earlier on Vivo, released on August 6, 2021, and later appeared on Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, released on January 14, 2022 (the Columbia Pictures logo appears in the beginning on said films). It's unknown if this will appear on other films in the future.

Editor's Note: The end result looks unprofessional, with the strange color grading and the logo being visibly off-centered. It feels more like a TV production company logo than that of a major film studio.