CBS Films Logo History (featuring Cinema Center Films, CBS Theatrical Films)

"CBS Films Logo History (featuring Cinema Center Films, CBS Theatrical Films)" compiled by TR3X Productions, 11/02/2025.
CBS, one of the main TV networks in the USA, entered the motion picture industry when William S. Paley, Frank Stanton and Gordon T. Stulberg established Cinema Center Films in 1967. They produced thirty films from 7th August 1968 to 9th August 1972, beginning with 'With Six You Get Eggroll' in Doris Day's final feature film, and ending with 'Snoopy Come Home', the last of two Peanuts films that Cinema Center Films co-produced with Lee Mendelson/Bill Melendez Productions (the other film was 'A Boy Named Charlie Brown' from 4th December 1969).
At the turn of the 1970s saw CBS re-enter the film scene, when CBS Theatrical Films was founded in 1979 with Donald March heading the company; the company released eleven films from 13th March 1981 to 8th November 1985. The first logo they used featured early CGI animation by Information International, Inc., which appeared on the first two films made by CBS Theatrical Films. Like Cinema Center Films, this film division of CBS was short-lived, and CBS Productions was involved with closing down the company; their last two films were released a week apart from each other. A week after their last film was released, CBS, one of three companies (the other two were Columbia Pictures and HBO) that formed a joint venture in March 1982 to establish Nova Pictures, departed the aforementioned venture, and HBO made the same move several months afterwards; that joint venture was renamed to TriStar Pictures in May 1983.
Two decades later, CBS Corporation launched a subsidiary in March 2007 that was a film production and distribution company, known as CBS Films. As far as I know, their first logo never made an appearance in their films, and the only source I found featuring it was the link attached to the aforementioned logo on CBS Films' Logopedia page, which is mentioned on-screen in the video and the credits. Their first film, 'Extraordinary Measures', was released on 22nd January 2010, and this introduced a new animated logo that would be used in their next four films, making its last appearance on 'Beastly' on 4th March 2011 (coincidentally, the first appearance of their second logo/first on-screen logo was on a trailer for that film in November 2009). Their second and last logo made its debut on a teaser trailer of 'A Woman in Black' in mid-August 2011, and note the timestamps below listing the variations of the film and trailer logo animations; the main animated logo premiered half a year later, appearing on the last thirty-one films produced and distributed by them. By the time 'Jexi' was released on 11th October 2019, plans were made for CBS Films to be folded into the CBS Entertainment Group, which occurred when ViacomCBS (now known as Paramount Global) was founded through the merger of CBS Corporation and Viacom on 4th December 2019. As of February 2025, the rights to all the films by Cinema Center Films, CBS Theatrical Films and CBS Films are owned by Paramount Pictures.
CBS Films, Inc., the syndicated division of the CBS Television Network from 1952-68 before it was renamed to CBS Enterprises, is not featured in this video.


Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:03 Cinema Center Films (01)
1:19 CBS Theatrical Films (02 - 1st logo)
1:58 CBS Theatrical Films (02 - 2nd logo)
3:13 CBS Films (03 - 1st logo)
3:16 CBS Films (03 - 2nd logo)
4:16 CBS Films (03 - 3rd logo; films)
5:55 CBS Films (03 - 3rd logo; trailers)
6:30 Credits


-TR3X