type production company film distributor industry motion picture television entertainment fate acquired 1988 founded 1971 1 2 founder rayland jensen defunct 1988 to 1990 1 headquarters park city utah united states owner schick 1971 1980 1 taft broadcasting 1980 1987 3 independent 2000 present 4 website http www.sunnclassicpictures.com sunn classic pictures also known as schick sunn classic pictures is an independent 4 u.s. based film distributor founded in 1971 . 1 2 the company was notable for family films and documentaries and was purchased by taft broadcasting in 1980 . history edit sunn classic was located in park city utah 5 with offices in nearby salt lake city ; 3 its company name added an extra n to the word sun for legal reasons . 2 the founder rayland jensen previously handled distribution of american national enterprises 1968 release alaskan safari which spent five years at the north american box office . 1 in 1971 jensen began his new company at the request of employees from the schick razor company 1 at the time a subsidiary of warner lambert . 6 during its tenure sunn classic spent us 85 000 in pre production research on each of its films conducting phone surveys and interviews with potential viewers . according to bruce a. austin sunn identified as its market working class families who rarely went to the movies more than twice a year . in the midst of the research it released films with an mpaa rating of g and in heavily marketed limited engagements . through a process called four wall distribution or four walling the company would rent theaters to show its films and retained all of the box office receipts . 2 7 sunn classic specialized in family entertainment such as 1974 s the life and times of grizzly adams 4 7 and its subsequent spin off television series on the nbc network . 1 the outer space connection was released in 1975 . this documentary was produced by alan landsburg but was distributed by sunn classic . by 1977 domestic sales for grizzly adams reached upwards of us 24 million ; another sunn release in search of noah s ark made us 26 million . 2 among its other titles were 1977 s the lincoln conspiracy 2 1979 s in search of historic jesus 8 and 1983 s cujo . the company also ran a television unit in tandem with its film department . 3 jensen and another fellow employee clair farley formed jensen farley pictures ; one of their early releases was 1981 s private lessons . 9 in july 1980 10 the company and two schick divisions were purchased by cincinnati based taft enterprises 11 for over us 2.5 million . 3 10 eventually the new owner christened sunn classic as taft international pictures . 8 however after carl lindner jr. purchased taft and restructured it into great american broadcasting the studio ceased operations . by the 2000s the media and property assets of the original sunn classics were under new management . 4 references edit a b c d e f g management team . sunn classic pictures . retrieved october 11 2010 . a b c d e f film gives new twist to lincoln assassination . the day . new london connecticut . associated press ap . may 23 1977 . p. 15 . retrieved october 11 2010 . a b c d staff june 26 1980 . taft forms movie unit . deseret news . p. 5b . retrieved october 11 2010 . a b c d company profile . sunn classic pictures . 2004 . retrieved october 11 2010 . buck jerry april 9 1978 . programmed bear . the palm beach post . associated press ap . p. g8 . retrieved october 11 2010 . safetyrazors.net schick injector razors a b austin bruce a. 1989 . the film industry and audience response . immediate seating a look at movie audiences . wadsworth publishing . pp. 12 13 . isbn 0 534 09366 3 . a b ebert roger february 23 1982 . utah fest introduces new faces films . the miami news . chicago sun times . p. 3c . retrieved october 11 2010 . donahue suzanne mary . american film distribution the changing marketplace . umi research press . p. 232 . isbn 0 8357 1776 3 . retrieved october 11 2010 . a b wall street journal abstracts . dow jones & company news corporation . july 10 1980 . p. 26 . missing or empty title help ; access date requires url help staff july 27 1987 . special report the top 50 companies . advertising age . crain communications inc. p. s 3 . access date requires url help external links edit sunn classic pictures at the internet movie database retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title sunn classic pictures & oldid 744068420 categories companies based in utahmedia companies established in 1971film distributors of the united statesfilm production companies of the united statestaft broadcasting1971 establishments in utahhidden categories pages with citations lacking titlespages using citations with accessdate and no urlarticles created via the article wizard navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 12 october 2016 at 22 52 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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