Producers Sales Organization

Producers Sales Organization (PSO; on its final years PSO Productions, Inc.) was an independent motion picture production and sales company founded in 1977.[1] Initiated by Mark Damon, an actor-turned-producer,[1] PSO mostly handled foreign sales of independent films. It was initially a partnership between Damon, producer Sandy Howard, and Richard St. Johns, who worked for Arthur Guinness Son & Co. At one point, it was a subsidiary of Guinness.[2]

In its final years of existence, PSO briefly became a full-fledged production company, setting up operations on March 27, 1984, through subsidiary PSO Presentations, which had joined forces with producer Sidney Kimmel to form Jonesfilm, which is excepted to produce three films per year.[3]

On April 10, 1984, a major shake-up happened in the sales and acquisition department and executive Eleanor Powell moved as position to deputy managing director at the company.[4] In November 1984, PSO merged with film financing firm The Delphi Companies; the resulting company, PSO-Delphi, forged a domestic theatrical distribution deal with TriStar Pictures and a home video distribution deal with CBS/Fox Video.[5]

On May 14, 1985, PSO signed an agreement with Frank Yablans, and his upstart Northstar Entertainment Corporation, of which they would launch his program, with three films per year, one or two miniseries, and several made-for-television movies.[6] On June 4, 1985, the company entered into an agreement with Roadshow Film Distributors whereas Roadshow would receive an output deal for four productions by PSO.[7] On June 18, 1985, Producers Sales Organization inked an output deal with the French distribution company UGC, whereas UGC would distribute an indeterminate number of films that were produced by PSO and it would be limited to films PSO produces or finances.[8] Before going bankrupt, on December 31, 1985, Taft Entertainment Pictures/Keith Barish Productions had inked an agreement with PSO to handle international sales of the future Taft-Barish productions, with Tri-Star, on behalf of PSO, handling domestic distribution.[9]

Despite releasing many successful films, PSO ran into financial problems and was forced into bankruptcy in 1986, effectively ending the company, and the Taft-Barish pictures planned by PSO would eventually move to J&M Entertainment.[10] Until the company went bankrupt, Gregory Cascante became president of the PSO studio.[11] In a lead-up to the bankruptcy plan, PSO decided to drop in-house production and restructure their output deals from output deals with foreign distributors into picture-by-picture agreements, with various distributors investing in foreign countries and had a deal with RKO Pictures.[12]

The company was forced out of film production when they cut their relationship with Delphi on April 23, 1986, with new credit backing on various companies, in order to rely on the foreign sales agency business.[13] PSO agreed on a new line of credit with Chemical Bank of New York and The First National Bank of Boston on the condition that the company had to concentrate on what it did originally, acquire foreign sales rights to pictures and flog those films abroad.[14] PSO had completed agreements with Zupnick Enterprises to handle overseas placements for the indie production company, and it will be committed to the PSO route.[15] As the company had gone into bankruptcy protection, Vestron was rumored to buy PSO, but the company shut down outright.[16] Many of its employees were soon hired by Vestron Pictures to run a new foreign sales unit dubbed Producers Distribution Organization, later renamed Interaccess Film Distribution, Inc., and then to Vestron International Group.[17][18][19]

A year after PSO ended, Damon founded a new company, with Peter Guber and Jon Peters, called Vision International.[1]

A majority of the PSO library would ultimately end up with Lionsgate, and then Icon International (originally founded by Mel Gibson).