Nelson Entertainment

Nelson Entertainment was a Los Angeles-based film production and home video distribution company, a subsidiary of Nelson Holdings International Ltd., a Vancouver, Canada, holding company formed in 1985 by British film producer Barry Spikings and Richard Northcott, a British financier who amassed his fortune from a chain of hardware and furniture stores.[1]

The company acquired Galactic Films as well as Spikings Corporation in 1985, then later acquired distribution rights to a majority of Embassy titles after purchasing its home video division, which paid $85 million, and then signed an agreement with Columbia Pictures which enabled Nelson to finance their films for Columbia.[2] The company would bought out Autovend Technology Corp, which holds 400 tapes for sale or rental in September 1986, with John Lack, who was former executive of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment to run the Autovend technology, and involves an exchange for one Nelson share for each three Autovend shares the company is acquiring from Selox Manufacturing Ltd., which holds 44% of Autovend.[3]

On November 26, 1986, Nelson decided to form a foreign sales arm, Nelson International, Inc., which is a Los Angeles-based sales firm, will be responsible for the sales and marketing of the films that were produced by Nelson Entertainment, and production budgets of the upcoming Nelson titles would cost $8–15 million to produce, per year, and Ian Jessel, who was formerly executive of CBS Theatrical Films was named president of the unit.[4]

On March 18, 1987, Nelson Entertainment, through its Embassy Home Entertainment division inked a pact with Hemdale Film Corporation, to receive 10 pictures in a co-financing agreement between Hemdale and Nelson, and these ten pictures donated by Nelson and Hemdale would receive $10 million in payments and the collection of video rights would eventually fall in the range of $25–30 million, judging by current market conditions, and Nelson would receive domestic home video rights, while Hemdale retained all other rights to the 10 pictures.[5]

On May 20, 1987, Nelson Entertainment had inked a pact with West German video distributor Neue Constantin Film, a successful theatrical distributor which has been releasing through Taurus Video, in order to handle marketing of Embassy Home Entertainment's titles, and a new banner, effective on July 1, Constantin-Embassy was formed to release 15-20 titles annually.[6] It is also announced that Nippon Herald in Japan formed a partnership with Nelson Entertainment to handle a subsidiary Herald Nelson, which was also took effect on July 1, and gave them half the overhead, with Herald Nelson giving them 20-25 titles monthly, with 12-15 titles coming from the Embassy Home Entertainment library, and supply a half-dozen titles to various companies, like Madrid and Pony.[7] On June 3, 1987, Nelson Entertainment decided to intervene in the Hemdale Film Corporation-Vestron Video lawsuit over video rights to a package of 12 Hemdale films, and Nelson then subsequently filed for rights to the same 12 pictures under almost identical terms as the arrangement Vestron is trying to be enforced, and the deal decided to add another film to the mix, High Tide, that brings advance for $3 million.[8]

Sometime in August 1987, Embassy Home Entertainment was renamed Nelson Entertainment,[9] but retained the earlier brand as well as Charter Entertainment for sell-through products.[10] Nelson then financed a deal with Castle Rock Entertainment to co-produce their films, and in addition handle the international distribution rights. In case, Nelson was to produce 4 films, while Castle Rock was set to produce the other 14 films, and received an additional 5-year and 18 feature order, in addition to the original Nelson/Columbia order, in which they would receive a order of 3 years and 12 features, and Nelson had invested $175 million in funding that was provided by Castle Rock Entertainment.[11] In August 1987, Nelson Films is getting the launchpad with a slate of 5 to 7 features annually, and the project Beryl received a $12.5 million in co-production profits and it was set to be distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but the film was never materialized.[12]

That year, in October 1987, Nelson Entertainment International, a subsidiary of Nelson Entertainment makes its debut at the MIFED with four films in the various stages of readiness, and the international division, headed by Ian Jessel, controls overseas video, as well as domestic syndication and theatrical rights created for the studio.[13] In November 1987, Nelson decided to invest money for the Nelson Vending Technology future and decided that the founder wishes to comment on a revenue-sharing plan for a proposed network of Nelson vid-vending units, and the company is currently operating 55 units in the Toronto area, namely the Amazing Video Machine.[14] In September 1988, Orion Home Video became Nelson's sales agent; in addition, Orion Pictures would later theatrically distribute a few of Nelson's titles.[15] On February 17, 1988, Nelson Entertainment received a loan from Credit Lyonnais Bank to earn $3 million to $10 million, regarding of subsidiaries.[16] By February 1989, Orion was the official home video distributor of Nelson product.[17]

In 1991, Nelson Entertainment sold its home video division to New Line Cinema and it was rebranded as New Line Home Video.[18] The company was later renamed Sultan Entertainment and was acquired by New Line, who then later took over the rights to the library.[19] This merger also meant Nelson's video rights changed hands, RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video began distributing former Embassy and Nelson videos. By 1994, Nelson's catalog had been acquired by Epic Productions and folded into the Alpha Library Company. After Epic's closure Crédit Lyonnais assumed responsibility of its library. The library was put up for auction by the Consortium de Realisation as the "Epic library". Credit Lyonnais later sold the Epic film library to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in 1997,[20] then Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired 2/3 of PolyGram's pre-April 1996 library in October 1998.[21] Therefore, MGM now owns most of the Nelson Entertainment library with the copyrights being held by Orion Pictures. Due to a previous agreement with Viacom Enterprises, Paramount Pictures via Trifecta Entertainment & Media holds the television rights to Nelson's post-January 1989 films not co-produced with Castle Rock. Castle Rock's pre-July 1994 titles are owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment, but are controlled by MGM via Orion, while the film Labyrinth is currently controlled by The Jim Henson Company and under license to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.