[li 1] In 1963, the owner of the Pacific Coast Theater chain, William R. Foreman, purchased Cinerama, Inc.
In 1966, CRC was set up to be an independent distributor of widescreen motion pictures produced by Cinerama, various foreign films and ABC Pictures, the film production unit of the American Broadcasting Company.
[1][li 2] CRC was only a distributor of films, without retaining copyright stake over each production.
ABC Pictures ended operations in early 1973, thus CRC moved to primarily distributing non-financed films (acquisitions).
By August 1974, CRC had released 125 acquired films at which time its productions and reissues were handled by American International Pictures.