Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and recorded videos) through multiple platforms. Through an intermediate holding company called Sony Film Holding Inc., it is operated as a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., which is itself a subsidiary of the multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. Based at the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California as one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, it encompasses Sony's motion picture, television production and distribution units. Its sales in the fiscal year 2020 (April 2020 – March 2021) was reported to be $7.16 billion. All of SPE's divisions are members of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Sony's film franchises include The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, Spider-Man, Jumanji, Men in Black, and Sony's Spider-Man Universe. History On September 1, 1987, The Coca-Cola Company announced plans to spin off its assets of Columbia Pictures, which it had owned since 1982. Under this arrangement, Coca-Cola would sell its entertainment assets (a.k.a. Coca-Cola's Entertainment Business Sector) to TriStar Pictures, of which it owned 39.6%. Tri-Star would be renamed as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (CPE), with Coca-Cola owning 49%, its shareholders owning 31%, and Tri-Star's shareholders owning 20%. As part of a merger plan, the two television business, comprising Columbia/Embassy Television and Tri-Star Television, merged altogether to form a new incarnation of the original Columbia Pictures Television. The merger enabled three top Tri-Star executives, namely Arnold Messner, who ran Tri-Star Telecommunications, Victor A. Kaufman, who ran the main Tri-Star Pictures studio, and Scott Siegler, who ran Tri-Star Television to stay on, while four of the Coca-Cola Entertainment Business Sector had departed, namely Barbara Corday, who ran Columbia/Embassy Television as president, Herman Rush and Peter Seale, who ran Coca-Cola Telecommunications and Brian McGrath, who was the president of the Coca-Cola Entertainment Business Sector. In early December 1987, former Coke EBS vice president Kenneth Lemberger had exited the post to join Tri-Star Pictures, displacing Roger Faxon, who had joined Columbia Pictures as senior vice president of the studio. The merger was approved by shareholders on December 15, 1987, and it was completed two days later, and that the Columbia and Tri-Star brands would be used as separate and autonomous production