The entertainment company LIONSGATE's (NYSE: LGF) rise to stardom is a Hollywood darling of a success story as perfect as any Oscar-worthy screenplay: from initial founding in Vancouver in 1997, through breakout success with daring features like 2000's American Psycho, to becoming the most successful independent film and TV distribution company in North America today with properties like Twilight and The Hunger Games. LIONSGATE's story was first brought to my attention by film money-baller HollyQuant.com, and we have collaborated since to produce a poster that sings the saga of this studio, The Lionsgate Universe:

Introduction to the design
The design of the poster is based on the company's

continuously evolving logos that began with the constellation of Leo the lion and has now found rest in a cloud bank. Against this celestial backdrop all films through 2012 are plotted, selected movie posters are featured, and basic financial info & events are presented.

The star field
The films are plotted as stars across time (x-axis) according to their worldwide gross revenues (y-axis), in 2013 dollars. A log scale is used to distribute the films more evenly - allowing both $800M blockbusters and single-screen duds to stand alone and tell their stories. Further, the size of each star correlates to its critical reception (via Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating) and the glow around stars indicates what major genre it belongs to:
You may not be able to see all of the detail zoomed out. Click through to the poster and engage with it, diving deep into clusters of stars to learn more about what has made Lionsgate tic.

The rest
Two movie posters from each year were selected considering revenue, rating, and general legacy of that year's films. These two films and other notables are labeled in the star field. LGF's market cap is plotted (as a white line) against the backdrop of total film revenue, grouped by release dates in a given year (as purple bars). Note that film revenue accounts for the majority of the company's revenue, but that actual total 10k revenue for each year is larger than displayed as it includes other revenue sources such as television, and the LGF financial year ends on March 31, not December 31 as modeled here. Finally, key events such as Oscar awards and acquisitions are noted at the bottom of the poster in blue.

And oh yes, the comet streaking up and up through the star field is indeed a trend line!

Info We Trust is a data adventure exploring how to better humanize information. To learn more read the opening post here. The creator, RJ Andrews, is an engineer and proud Northeastern University and MIT graduate. Please reach out through facebook, twitter @infowetrust, or the contact page.