Trans World Entertainment was an American independent production and distribution company which produced low-to-medium budget films mostly targeted for home-video market.
[8] That year, Eduard Sarlui joined the company as CEO and chairman, while Paul Mason was installed as President of Production; TWE's output increased considerably.
[9] This was primarily due to them acquiring the rights to Italian genre titles from filmmakers such as Joe D'Amato; TWE would retitle and dub them and release them straight to video.
[11] The company employed a pre-sales model for their product and through the mid-to-late 1980s continued to produce modest direct to video hits such as Moon in Scorpio starring Britt Ekland and Interzone.
[1] Epic's takeover of Empire was completed in May 1988 and led to in-production titles such as Stuart Gordon's Robot Jox, Peter Manoogian's Arena, and David Schmoeller's Catacombs to be delayed in release by several years.
[21] Donald Cammell was tapped to direct with shooting slated to begin in Mexico in November 1988, but after months of pre-production on location, Brando apparently dropped out of the project, citing insurance issues.
[22] During this time, Trans World Entertainment and Epic Productions continued to produce and release films such as Ghosts Can't Do It starring Bo Derek, Anthony Quinn and Donald Trump; and Honeymoon Academy with Robert Hays and Kim Cattrall.
The deal effectively ended Trans World Entertainment as a distribution entity with Moshe Diamant becoming co-chairman of Vision and Sarlui also becoming a significant shareholder.
[14] Shortly afterwards, Vision International and Epic Productions entered into a co-production deal with Stone Group Pictures, owned by Michael Douglas.
In August 1992, Crédit Lyonnais foreclosed on Epic Productions and Trans World Entertainment, removing Moshe Diamant and Eduard Sarlui from the company.
[1][24] Sarlui and Diamant also sued their former attorney, Eugene L. Wolver, for assisting Crédit Lyonnais in their attempts to bury their bad loans in the Empire/Epic merger, leading to Epic being seized by the bank.
[25] During this time, Vision International cut ties with Crédit Lyonnais completely, instead receiving backing from Mercantile National and Kreditbank Luxembourg.
However, the ongoing lawsuits with Crédit Lyonnais put pressure on Vision International's producing interest, which lead to founder Mark Damon to depart the company in June 1993.
[32] Despite this success however, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment sold their library to MGM the following year for $235 million, following being taken over by Seagram and the subsequent folding into Universal Pictures in 1999.