Destination Films

Background
Destination Films was originally founded as an independent film company by Brent Baum and Steve Stabler in late 1998, initially releasing and/or distributing movies like Bats, Drowning Mona and Thomas and the Magic Railroad, the latter of which the company provided American distribution. Sony Pictures Entertainment distributed their films on home video through Columbia TriStar Home Video. The company went under in February 2001 after a mid-list of box office bombs. However, Sony quickly bought Destination from its co-founders and revitalized it as its new "niche" film arm a year later. It was later reenacted as a label of Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment (later in 2004 known as Sony Pictures Home Entertainment). Since 2007, following a company reorganization at Sony and its many factions, Destination was remade into a label of the newly formed Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions alongside newly-formed labels Stage 6 Films and Affirm Films.

As of 2023, the company is currently active; Destination sometimes co-releases films with Sony Pictures Classics and Samuel Goldwyn Films. Destination co-released or produced films in association with Triumph Films. After Triumph went dormant in 2008 (and was revived only once in 2014), Destination supplanted the label's purpose within Sony. Destination's film library includes independent films, art-house films, and a few anime titles such as Tekkonkinkreet, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, and Metropolis. Currently, Samuel Goldwyn Films holds the rights to the pre-Sony Destination library.

Logo (October 22, 1999-)
Visuals: On a black background with haze, a planet (presumably the Earth) orbits around the sun. When the planet comes close to the sun, shadows of the letters "Serif", "Serif", "Serif", "Serif", "Serif", and "Serif" fade in and crowd around the sun and planet. The planet moves into the sun, and the letters, which are now "Serif" in Trajan Pro font, move in. A bright flash occurs, and on a now completely black background is the Destination logo, which is two halves of a circle split up by a line. The line has a crescent on one side and a sun on the other. The text "Serif" is arranged around this line. The logo then shines.

Variants:
 * On streaming prints of Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), the logo starts at the last half after the shining.
 * On several films after Sony relaunched the company, the logo is zoomed in more compared to normal.

Technique: CGI.

Audio: An extended whoosh accompanied by a synth choir. Sometimes, it is silent, like on Full Contact.

Audio Variants:
 * On some prints of Steamboy, it had the Screen Gems Pictures music, possibly due to an editing error since Screen Gems released the film outside of the United States.
 * On streaming prints of Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), only the very last part of the music is used.
 * I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer uses the opening theme.

Availability:
 * It appears on several films Destination released, such as Bats, Drowning Mona, Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), Metropolis, Buying the Cow, Steamboy, Eye of the Beholder, Tokyo Godfathers, MirrorMask, Accident Man (2018), and most recently, Never Back Down: Revolt (2021).
 * This logo also oddly doesn't appear on Brothers in Arms (2005), despite the fact that they produced it (and the opening credits are mentioning them), as Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's logo appears instead.
 * This logo is also preserved on streaming prints of the company's pre-Sony movies, but on Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), this logo is oddly cut-off due to a possible plaster attempt from the Samuel Goldwyn Films logo (though the other digital prints of these films don't have this issue).