TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled as Tri-Star until 1991) is an American film production label that is part of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is part of the Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. The company was founded on March 2, 1982, as Nova Pictures, a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, CBS, and HBO, whose video units handled video, broadcast, and pay cable rights to its products. It was renamed a year later to Tri-Star to avoid confusion with the PBS series Nova.
Among its notable releases are Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Basic Instinct, Rambo: First Blood Part II (all of these movies are produced by Carolco Pictures), and Hollywood’s first Godzilla. The company scored box-office hits with modestly budgeted fare in the 1980s. It also cut fortuitous distribution deals with the Producers Sales Organization, Carolco Pictures and the Taft Entertainment Group; acquired Loews Theatres; and formed a television arm. Among the various hits TriStar scored on its own during the decade were About Last Night, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Real Genius, Nothing in Common, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Principal, Look Who's Talking and Steel Magnolias.