Coppola named the studio after a zoetrope he was given in the late 1960s by the filmmaker and collector of early film devices, Mogens Skot-Hansen.

[10] In 2000, it signed a ten-year financing pact with VCL Film + Medien to handle foreign sales of their own titles.

[13] The only movies from the Coppola canon that won't be released as part of the pact are The Godfather trilogy, which is owned by Paramount.

[17] In the building lobby, Coppola operates a small Italian café, Cafe Zoetrope, featuring Inglenook Estate wine and memorabilia from his films.

Coppola wrote much of the screenplay for The Godfather in the nearby Caffe Trieste and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books is located up Columbus Avenue from the Sentinel Building.