First Independent

History

First Independent Films was formed in 1990 by Welsh ITV franchise holder HTV following its acquisition of the British arm of Vestron Video International. The company, run by the father and son team of Michael and Martin Myers, continued Vestron’s habitude with covering some very wide and vast genre territories, and several high-profile licensing deals, despite its small size. The company had deals with Castle Rock Entertainment (until 1993), most of Atlanta cable mogul Ted Turner's entertainment libraries (including the only known official VHS releases of the Hanna-Barbera shows Wait Till Your Father Gets Home and The Banana Splits and Friends Show), Emshell Producers (which made the direct-to-video Ernest films), Penta Pictures, and Spelling Films. It also had the UK rights to selected HBO titles, such as The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, and selected New Line Cinema films, such as Dumb and Dumber, which was also the firm's most successful contribution to the British box office. The company also made its own films, most of which, including Let Him Have It, Crimetime, Raining Stones and Naked were very well-received. First Independent also released some poorly-received original films, though one of the films falling into that category, Bob Hoskins' Rainbow, achieved notability for being the first film ever done digitally, having been filmed in high definition with the first Solid State Electronic Cinematography cameras Sony built and with 35 minutes of digital processing and visuals.

In 1996, HTV and its subsidiaries, including First Independent, were acquired by United News and Media, which published the Daily Express tabloid. First Independent lost the video rights for most of the Turner properties when Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner that October; as a result, New Line Cinema was firmly bound to rival Entertainment in Video until 2010. In 1997, First Independent reported a loss of some £400,350 on sales of £13 million. At that point, it had purchased the UK rights to the Ridley Scott vehicle G.I. Jane, which proved to be a box office failure so massive as to mark the company's undoing. On 22 February 1998, Michael Myers succumbed to an undisclosed illness; three days later, United News and Media put it up for sale; it was eventually put in the hands of Sony, which promptly folded it into the UK arm of Columbia TriStar Home Video. The last release from the company to bear its on-screen ident, Savior, was released on video in January 1999. ColumBia TriStar would use the First Independent name on seven more titles it released on VHS in the UK rental market—Cube, Captured, Tarzan and the Lost City, The Base, Side Streets, Just the Ticket and Orgazmo—but those tapes used the standard Columbia TriStar masters, and the BBFC website lists The Base as the only one of the seven that was not submitted solely by Columbia TriStar. The First Independent name was also used on UK DVD reissues of its catalog of more than 450 titles.

Releases

TBD