Producers Sales Organization

Producers Sales Organization was an independent production/sales company founded in 1977. Initiated by Mark Damon, an actor-turned-producer, PSO (its otherwise known moniker) largely handled foreign sales of independent films. In its final years of existence, PSO briefly became a full-fledged production company.

Despite releasing many successful films, PSO ended up running into financial problems and was forced into bankruptcy in 1986, effectively ending the company. Many of its employees were soon hired by Vestron Pictures to run a new foreign sales unit dubbed Producers Distribution Organization, later renamed Interaccess Film Distribution, Inc.

A year after PSO ended, Damon founded a new company, with Peter Guber and Jon Peters, called Vision International.

Among the most notable films PSO released or financed include:

  • The Final Countdown (1981)
  • Das Boot (1981)
  • An American Werewolf in London (1981)
  • Dead and Buried (1981)
  • Endless Love (1981)
  • Young Doctors in Love (1982)
  • Cujo (1983)
  • The Day After (1983)
  • Fire and Ice (1983)
  • Never Say Never Again (1983)
  • The Outsiders (1983)
  • Silkwood (1983)
  • La Traviata (1983)
  • The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984)
  • The Neverending Story (1984)
  • Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
  • Prizzi's Honor (1985)
  • 8 Million Ways to Die (1986)
  • Flight of the Navigator (1986)
  • 9½ Weeks (1986)
  • Short Circuit (1986)

Famous quotes containing the words producers, sales and/or organization:

    “When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves.”
    —Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)

    “Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you.... Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.”
    —St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)

    “It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.”
    —Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)