PM Entertainment Group Inc.

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Motion pictures
Predecessor	City Lights Entertainment (1986–1990)
Founded	1989; 37 years ago (1989)
Defunct	2002 (2002)
Fate	Assets acquired byEcho Bridge Entertainment
Successor	Lionsgate Studios
Headquarters	Los Angeles,California, US
Key people	Joseph Merhi Richard Pepin George Shamieh
Products	Motion Pictures Television Production
Parent	The Harvey Entertainment Company (2000–2002)

PM Entertainment Group Inc. (stylized aspm entertainment group, incorporated) was an Americanproduction,distribution company which produced a distinctive line of low-to-medium budget films mostly targeted for home-video market. The company diversified intotelevision production and larger budgeted star vehicles before being sold by its founders in 2000.

In 1986, Joseph Toufik Merhi and Richard Joseph Pepin, indie film directors and producers, founded the production companyCity Lights Entertainment with Ronald L. Gilchrist for their first movies, the comedyHollywood In Trouble andslasher filmMayhem.^[1] The films were successful and caught the VHSdirect-to-video boom beginning in the mid-late 80s.

However, in 1989, the relationship between Pepin/ Merhi and Gilchrist turned sour and their partnership was dissolved with Gilchrist and City Lights keeping the rights to the films already produced or in production.^[2] The last films released by City Lights werePayback andContra Conspiracy in 1990.^[3][4] City Lights Entertainment produced eleven films from 1986 to 1990.^[5]

Around 1989, after splitting from Ronald Gilchrist, Richard (Rick) Pepin and Joseph Merhi started PM Entertainment (PM Entertainment from surnamesPepin-Merhi). Based on the successful formula pioneered at City Lights Entertainment, PM Entertainment entered into an exclusive distribution contract withHBO and George Shamieh joined as the third partner and head of sales.^[6] The first film produced by PM Entertainment wasL.A. Heat directed by Merhi and starringLawrence Hilton-Jacobs andJim Brown. The film was quickly followed by two sequels,L.A. Vice (1989) andChance (1990) withLawrence Hilton-Jacobs reprising his role as Jon Chance. He also directedAngels of the City in 1989 and cameos as Jon Chance, but the film's plot is not a sequel toL.A. Heat.

The company began bringing together a company of actors and directors to work over multiple projects, includingWings Hauser, who directed and starred in three films for the company in the early 90s,^[7] andJeff Conaway, who starred in three films and directedBikini Summer II.^[8]

Although the company focused primarily on the action market andexploitation films, they attempted to diversify into children's films (Magic Kid andBigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter) and dramas (Cellblock Sisters: Banished Behind Bars) with limited success. During the '90s, PM Entertainment had success within the kickboxing and martial arts genre and championedCynthia Rothrock andDon "The Dragon" Wilson in multiple film projects.

In 1996, PM Entertainment diversified intotelevision production with theTV seriesL.A. Heat, which is largely unrelated to their earlier film,L.A. Heat as neitherLawrence Hilton-Jacobs nor his character, Det. Jon Chance, appear in the show. Instead, it focuses on Chester "Chase" McDonald (Wolf Larson) and Detective August Brooks (Steven Williams), twoLos Angeles police detectives investigating robbery/homicides. The series aired onTNT for two seasons beginning on March 15, 1999. Following the success ofL.A. Heat, PM developed a second TV series,Hollywood Safari, which acted as a continuation of their 1997film of the same name withTed Jan Roberts reprising his role as Josh Johnson and was joined bySam J. Jones playing his father, Troy. The show ran for one season before its cancellation.

In 1997, PM Entertainment decided that they wanted to double its own facilities on Sun Valley, in order to move to a nearly 15-acre site.^[9]

PM Entertainment's business model changed in the late '90s to accommodate distributors' requirement that films hire bankable names for projects, and they began making films such asInferno withJean-Claude van Damme which greatly affected their profit margin. Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin sold the company toThe Harvey Entertainment Company in early 2000 $6.5 million in cash and a further $1.45 million in stock.^[10] George Shamieh remained as head of the company under the new owners.^[11] The company continued to produce star vehicles such asLayover withDavid Hasselhoff andCamouflage withLeslie Nielsen, but Shamieh departed the company in late 2000 due to financial restructuring ofThe Harvey Entertainment Company.^[12]

CineTel Films was brought in to market the library of PM Entertainment and sell rights for upcoming productionsCon Express andLost Treasure withStephen Baldwin.^[12] These would be the last films produced under the PM Entertainment banner. Facing liquidation, in 2001,The Harvey Entertainment Company sold off its assets, excluding PM Entertainment, toClassic Media, although PM Entertainment remained in the hands of Harvey chief Roger Burlage,^[13] which later placed the company up for sale,^[14] and two years later, the company sold PM Entertainment and its library of over 150 films and 2 TV series to Echo Bridge Entertainment, who also acquired the assets ofCineTel Films.^[15] In 2021, as part of Echo Bridge's folding into SP Distribution, PM Entertainment Group's library was sold toFilmRise, which by 2025 was acquired by Lionsgate Studios, which now owns the rights to the PM Entertainment Group catalog.

• 2007 Audio Interview with Richard W. Munchkin about Joseph Merhi and PM Entertainment
• An oral history of PM Entertainment, a low-budget high-octane American dream

• Mass media companies established in 1989
• Companies disestablished in 2002
• Film production companies of the United States
• Defunct American film studios

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata