Orion Pictures Corporation was formed in 1978 under a conjuction with Warner Bros Pictures. Their owners were, in part, Filmways Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The founders were former managers of United Artists,co-chairmen Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin and chief executive officer Eric Pleskow being the leaders of a group who had resigned en masse after disputes with UA's then parent,Transamerica.
During that time, their films 10, Caddyshack, Sharkey's Machine, and A Little Romance became hits from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.
In 1982, Orion merged with Filmways Pictures (which had been successor-in-interest to American International Pictures) and briefly became an independent company with a new popular logo of a galaxy full of six stars forming an "O" for "Orion".
Since then, they focused on Woody Allen films, Hollywood blockbusters such as The Terminator, the Robocop films, as well as Academy Award winners such as Amadeus, Platoon, Dances With Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs.
In the mid 1990s, Orion had bankruptcy problems by losing fare interest in the company as duds such as Car 54 Where Are You? and Clifford were postponed from 1991 to 1994.
In 1997, Orion's buyout successfully went to MGM, and they began to acquire its film library as Orion finally went under the MGM name in late 1998. Orion remains an in-name-only subsidiary of MGM.
