Nelson Entertainment was a Los Angeles-based film production and home videodistribution company, a subsidiary of Nelson Holdings International Ltd., a Vancouver, Canada, holding company formed in 1985 by British film producerBarry Spikings and Richard Northcott, a British financier who amassed his fortune from a chain of hardware and furniture stores. The company acquired Galactic Films as well as Spikings Corporation in 1985, then later acquired distribution rights to a majority of Embassy titles after purchasing its home video division. Sometime in August 1987, Embassy Home Entertainment was renamed Nelson Entertainment, but retained the earlier brand as well as Charter Entertainment for sell-through products. Nelson then financed a deal with Castle Rock Entertainment to co-produce their films, and in addition handle the international distribution rights. In September 1988, Orion Home Video took over sales and marketing for Nelson; in addition, Orion Pictures would later theatrically distribute a few of Nelson's titles. By February 1989, Orion was the official home video distributor of Nelson product. In 1991, Nelson Entertainment sold its home video division to New Line Cinema and it was rebranded as New Line Home Video. The company was later renamed Sultan Entertainment and was acquired by New Line, who then later took over the rights to the library. By 1994, Nelson's catalog had been acquired by Epic Productions and folded into the Alpha Library Company. After Epic's closure Crédit Lyonnais assumed responsibility of its library. Upon the collapse of the bank the library was retitled as the Consortium de Realisation a.k.a the Epic library. Crédit Lyonnais later sold the Epic film library to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in 1997, then Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired 2/3 of PolyGram's pre-April 1996 library in October 1998. Therefore, MGM now owns most of the Nelson Entertainment library with the copyrights being held by Orion Pictures. Due to a previous agreement with Viacom Enterprises, Paramount Pictures via Trifecta Entertainment & Media holds the television rights to Nelson's post-January 1989 films not co-produced with Castle Rock. While Castle Rock's pre-July 1994 titles are owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment but are controlled by MGM via Orion.
