Registry

Does Universal Pictures support Israel?

Owned by Comcast Records for the parent company are kept separately.

Business presence documentedupdated 2026-09-25

Universal Pictures does business in Israel — we found records of its operations there, but no record of donations, aid, or a public statement of support. Every claim below links to its source.

Filed under: Entertainment & media companies · Companies that support Israel

Background

Universal Pictures is the film studio of NBCUniversal, which Comcast owns; Comcast's 2025 annual report lists the Universal Pictures entities among its subsidiaries. That chain is why most of what circulates about "Universal" and Israel belongs to someone else. The $2 million in humanitarian relief committed on 13 October 2023, part of it to American Friends of Magen David Adom, was announced by the group under the name Comcast NBCUniversal and is recorded on Comcast's page, not here — a parent's record is not the subsidiary's. Two other things are regularly mistaken for the film studio. Universal Cable Productions, NBCUniversal's television arm, sued its insurer after moving the USA Network series Dig out of Jerusalem during the 2014 Gaza fighting, arguing in court that the fighting was not a "war" for insurance purposes; that is a television production company, not Universal Pictures. And Universal Music Group is a different company altogether, not owned by Comcast, so its executives' public letters are not Universal Pictures'. Finally, the Hebrew-language site universalstudios.co.il that ranks highly for "יוניברסל" is a travel-recommendation site run by the Israeli agency TRAVELERS.CO.IL and says on its own pages that it is not Universal's official site.

SEC — Comcast 10-K (FY2025), Exhibit 21 subsidiary list Comcast (official newsroom) The Forward (Aiden Pink, 26 Apr 2017) universalstudios.co.il — archived 9 Jun 2026

Timeline of documented records

2019202020212022202320242018 — PartnershipPartnership20182024 — Operations in IsraelOperations in Israel2024

Documented records

TypeDateAmountRecipientSources
Partnership2018——
Universal licenses the theatrical release of its films in Israel to an Israeli distributor rather than running an office there. Until 2017 that licence sat with Globus Max, the Israeli cinema and distribution company that handled both Warner Bros. and Universal titles in Israel; Calcalist reported on 28 December 2017 that after Globus Max entered insolvency proceedings Warner Bros. appointed Tulip Entertainment as its Israeli representative from 1 January 2018, and that UIP — United International Pictures, the Universal-Paramount international distribution venture that handled Universal's films — was ending its own distribution agreement with Globus Max in early 2018. The change followed the chain's collapse, not any political decision. Globus Max had run 111 screens before entering insolvency in 2017; Elco, which bought the company that September including the distribution business it had paid separately for, sued in July 2020, alleging that the Warner and Universal distribution businesses were diverted to Tulip and others before the handover. The acting parties on the Israeli side are Israeli companies; Universal's role is that of the studio whose distribution agreement was terminated and re-licensed.
Operations in Israel2024——
Universal sells its films in the Israeli market and leads it. On Box Office Mojo's Israel chart for 2024 the six highest-grossing releases were all credited to Universal Pictures International, Universal's international distribution arm — Despicable Me 4 (released 27 June, about $7.3 million in Israel), Kung Fu Panda 4, Wicked (released 21 November), The Wild Robot, The Fall Guy and Migration, several of them DreamWorks Animation titles that Universal distributes — and the releases ran through every part of the year, from Night Swim on 4 January onward, without interruption during the Gaza war. The same pattern holds in 2026: The Odyssey opened in Israel on 16 July 2026 in 44 cinemas and had taken about $7.6 million there, the highest-grossing release in that market so far this year, and Calcalist reported on 21 July 2026 that it sold 80,000 tickets in its opening weekend — the best opening for a Christopher Nolan film in Israel — with 20% of its Israeli revenue coming from IMAX screens. This is commerce, not support, and it is not run from an Israeli office: the subsidiary list filed with Comcast's 2025 annual report on 3 February 2026 names 37 Universal Pictures entities from Australia to Mexico and not one registered in Israel.

Frequently asked questions

Did Universal Pictures donate money to Israel or Israeli causes?

We have no records of donations. What is on record is commercial activity in Israel (Partnership, Operations in Israel), which is not the same as support — see the records on this page.

Where does this information come from?

Every record on this page links to its source — news reports, official company statements, tax filings, or government records. 9 distinct sources are cited for Universal Pictures. Our methodology page explains the full verification process.

Sources & citations

Record last updated: 2026-09-25

Companies with documented support