American International Pictures

B ackground : American International Pictures was formed in 1954 by James H. Nicholson and entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff originally as "American Releasing Corporation", dedicated to releasing independently produced, low-budget and genre films (such as horror, sci-fi, and African-American), primarily of interest to the teenagers from the 1950s to late 1970s. In April 1956, ARC merged with global production company International Productions (not to be confused with "International Pictures", who already merged with Universal Pictures and formed "Universal-International" in 1946) to form AIP. In 1979, AIP was acquired by Filmways, Inc. for $4.3 million and in 1980, AIP was folded into Filmways becoming "Filmways Pictures". Today, most of the AIP library is owned by MGM, via their acquisition of Orion Pictures, which acquired Filmways in 1982 (later reincorporated itself as "Orion Pictures Corporation" in June), excepting the early releases are now licensed by TeleWorld.