Carolco Pictures, Inc. was an American independent film studio that was founded by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna in 1976.

Carolco hit its peak in the 1980s and early 1990s, with blockbuster successes including the first three films of the Rambo franchise, Field of Dreams, Total Recall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Basic Instinct, Universal Soldier, Cliffhanger and Stargate.

One of Vajna's early productions was a 1973 martial-arts film entitled The Deadly China Doll which made $3.7 million worldwide from a $100,000 budget.

Their earliest films were produced by American International Pictures and ITC Entertainment with Carolco's financial support,[6] and co-produced with Canadian theater magnate Garth Drabinsky.

Kassar and Vajna took a great risk buying the film rights to the novel (for $385,000) and used the help of European bank loans to cast Sylvester Stallone as the lead character, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo, after having worked with him on the John Huston film Escape to Victory (1981).

The sequel Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), was timed for the 10th anniversary of the United States' exit from the Vietnam War; that event garnered publicity for the new film, which also became a hit.

[30][31] Carolco subsequently began pre-production on the Spider-Man film, and James Cameron was quickly hired as the writer and director.

[32][33] In 1993, towards the end of filming True Lies, Variety carried the announcement that Carolco received a completed screenplay from Cameron.

[35] Cameron stalwart Arnold Schwarzenegger was frequently linked to the project as the director's choice for Doctor Octopus, and future Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio was considered for the titular role, Peter Parker.

In addition, Carolco was criticized for overspending on films through reliance on star power and far-fetched deals (Schwarzenegger received a then-unheard-of $10–14 million for his work on Total Recall and Terminator 2; Stallone also had similar treatment).

[40] In 1992, Carolco underwent a corporate restructuring, invested in by a partnership of Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera of Italy, Le Studio Canal+ of France, Pioneer, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

[44] Carolco’s plans for a Spider-Man film with James Cameron, which had an estimated budget of $50 million,[45] were forced to be shelved, following a period of litigation; in April 1993, Menahem Golan filed a lawsuit against Carolco to revoke his contract with them, since Cameron had Golan’s executive producer name omitted from the film credits.

Geena Davis, cast as the female lead through her ties with then-husband, the director Renny Harlin, was already an established A-lister but was coming off a string of flops.

[66] In 1992, Carolco Pictures licensed television distribution rights to its library to Spelling Entertainment's Worldvision Enterprises in order to pay off debt.

[67] In North America, with certain exceptions, those rights are held by Paramount Television Studios through Trifecta Entertainment & Media as the successor to Spelling/Worldvision.

All other rights in terms of home video were (and for a majority of the library, still are) licensed to Lionsgate under an ongoing deal with StudioCanal.

Lionsgate, in turn, licensed those rights in Canada to Entertainment One (which in turn was acquired by Lionsgate in 2023), although theatrical rights to most of the library were split between Sony Pictures (for Cliffhanger), and Rialto Pictures (for the rest of the library not already retained by its original distributors or passed on to other companies).

[citation needed] The video rights to most titles previously released by Lionsgate in North America are now held outright by StudioCanal, and sublicensed to Kino Lorber.

[citation needed] Showgirls was sold in pre-production to United Artists and Chargeurs (now known as Pathé); both studios retained the film.

[citation needed] StudioCanal itself held full distribution rights in France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.