| American Zoetrope | |
| Type: | Production company |
| Founder: | Francis Ford Coppola George Lucas |
| Location City: | San Francisco, California |
| Location Country: | United States |
| Industry: | Motion pictures Television |
| Owner: | Francis Ford Coppola Roman Coppola Sofia Coppola |
American Zoetrope (also known as Omni Zoetrope from 1977 to 1980 and Zoetrope Studios from 1980 until 1990) is a privately run American film production company, centered in San Francisco, California and founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
Opened on December 12, 1969,[1] the studio has produced not only the films of Coppola (including Apocalypse Now, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Tetro), but also George Lucas's pre-Star Wars film THX 1138, as well as many others by avant-garde directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, Wim Wenders and Godfrey Reggio. American Zoetrope was an early adopter of digital filmmaking, including some of the earliest uses of HDTV.[2]
Four films produced by American Zoetrope are included in the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films. American Zoetrope-produced films have received 15 Academy Awards and 68 nominations.
Initially located in a warehouse at 827[3] [4] [5] Folsom Street on the second floor of The Automatt building, the company's headquarters have, since 1972,[6] been in the historic Sentinel Building, at 916 Kearny Street in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood.
Coppola named the studio after a zoetrope he was given in the late 1960s by the filmmaker and collector of early film devices, Mogens Skot-Hansen. "Zoetrope" is also the name by which Coppola's quarterly fiction magazine, , is often known.
In 1980, the company bought General Service Studios in Hollywood, California, and became Zoetrope Studios, to produce and distribute films, as did later DreamWorks studio.[7] [8]
In 1999, it signed a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a first-look financing and production agreement.[9] In 2000, it signed a ten-year financing pact with VCL Film + Medien to handle foreign sales of their own titles.[10]
By 2007, ownership of American Zoetrope had been passed to Coppola's son and daughter, directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola.[11]
In 2010, Lionsgate announced a deal to distribute American Zoetrope films, including classics like The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, in North America on DVD, Blu-ray, electronic-sell-through, VOD as well as broadcast distribution rights.[12] The only movies from the Coppola canon that won't be released as part of the pact are The Godfather trilogy, which is owned by Paramount.[13]
Zoetrope.com, the Coppola family's website, was created around 1996 and became an online community for writers. In 2016, Francis Ford Coppola announced its relaunch as a "virtual studio".[14]
In 2024, American Zoetrope earned its first Tony Award for Best Musical as one of the producers of the 2023 stage musical adaptation of The Outsiders.[15]