History
Their initial releases were mostly geared to arthouse audiences, with an especially large number of Australian productions, as well as two Brazilian productions, Eu Te Amo (1981) and Lady on the Bus (1978), that introduced American audiences to actress Sonia Braga. They shifted their focus to small-budgeted independent films in the early 1980s, beginning with the surprise success of Valley Girl (1983), directed by Martha Coolidge. Night of the Comet, released in 1984, would be their first film to open on over 1000 screens.
By 1984, the company had signed an agreement with CBS/Fox Video, whereas a "conceptual partnership" that launched the Atlantic Video label, and among of the launch titles set up by Atlantic Video were Alphabet City, Roadhouse 66, Night of the Comet and Vamping. Atlantic International was also launched and license overseas rights to various films territory by territory.[1]
In 1985, they began a relationship with Paramount Pictures whereby the studio provided them money for larger-scale theatrical releases in exchange for home video and television rights to their films.[2] The company made its big break with the success of Teen Wolf, which then spawned a franchise that year.[3] In 1985, Atlantic Releasing Corporation started the Clubhouse Pictures label, which was designed to release films for a family audience, which set up the Clubhouse Pictures Family Network of theaters.[4]
On July 30, 1986, Jonathan Dana was hired by Atlantic Entertainment Group to supervise all Atlantic activities, via divisions Atlantic Releasing Corporation, Atlantic Television, Clubhouse Pictures and Atlantic International, and decided to "systemize" the top management to accommodate its growth to be a mini-major film studio.[5]
In November 1987, Atlantic Entertainment teamed up with Zenith Productions for a $20 million, three-picture agreement, following the success of Wish You Were Here, which the two companies ever formed a relationship that the relationship was more subtle than a 50/50 agreement, but essentially was an equal partnership, and the two companies would hold proportionate equity in all three pictures worldwide and the first wave of pictures was a production called Patty, as well as For Queen and Country and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, a co-production between the Czech and the U.S., and Atlantic would handle worldwide rights for the former, and had North American rights to the latter two, and foreign sales would be handled by Zenith's Sales Company.[6]
In January 1989, Atlantic made a new deal with Kartes Video Communications for home video rights to the movies previously covered in the Paramount deal. The library was bought by Island Pictures, which took over soliciting the films to home video. Island themselves suffered financial losses soon after and was absorbed into PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in 1998.[7] That same year, when PolyGram themselves were acquired by Seagram (parent company of Universal Studios, Seagram sold PolyGram's pre-1996 library to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in October 1998.[8]
For a number of years, Paramount Pictures had television and video distribution rights to Atlantic's library, some from their previous deal with the company, and others inherited when Viacom, who had purchased television rights to many earlier Atlantic releases, merged with Paramount. MGM now owns most of the library as a result of purchasing the pre-1996 portion of PolyGram's library.[9][10]
