Prism Leisure Corporation

Prism Leisure Corporation was a distribution and publishing company which primarily focused on reissues and compilations, often at low prices. The company was located in Enfield, Middlesex, United Kingdom,^[1] and founded in the 1980s.

The company expanded in 2002^[2] by acquiring competitors^[3] and became the UK’s leading wholesaler and worldwide distributor of CDs, cassettes, computer games, videos and DVDs^[2] They also handled board games and toys.^[1]

The company went into administration in 2007.^[4] A new company, Prism Leisure Ltd, was set up by former managing director^[1] Ivor Young.^[5]

Products

DVD/Video

Prism Leisure became a major publisher and distributor of budget home video on DVD and VHS. Titles include films such as Doomwatch, The Jigsaw Man, March or Die, The Brave Little Toaster, The Shawshank Redemption, Treasure Island and The Whistle Blower. They also released television series including Birds of a Feather.

List of studios distributed by Prism Leisure

These were a selection of companies that had their DVD's released by Prism Leisure.

• Carlton Video
• Metrodome Distribution
• Tartan Films
• Redbus Film Distribution (At this time they were Redbus Home Entertainment.)
• Granada Ventures (Done after the Carlton-Granada merger.)
• Lionsgate Home Entertainment (A few of their old films.)
• Abbey Home Media
• FremantleMedia
• Second Sight Films
• Medusa Pictures
• Odyssey Video
• Film 2000
• MIA (Also known as Missing In Action, not to be confused with the 1984 film.)
• Sanctuary Visual Entertainment
• Third Millennium
• Troma
• Addictive Films
• Digital Entertainment Limited
• Full Moon Entertainment

CD/Cassette

The majority of Prism's musical catalogue were compilations and reissued material including Jefferson Airplane's Feed Your Head: Live '67–'69.

Video games

Prism Leisure entered the video game industry in 1987 by purchasing local Enfield company Endurance Games (who had the rights to International Karate) and Addictive Games (home of the best-selling Football Manager).^[6] Further acquisitions included Paxman Promotions (a budget reissue label) as well as the rights to the back catalogue of various defunct companies. Addictive was kept on as a full price label (with releases including HotShot, The Kristal and further Football Manager games) while the Paxman Promotions name was used for compilations. Prism also became the UK publisher for the US company First Star Software and saw them release new versions of some of their games including Superman: The Game and Boulder Dash II. Many old games were licensed for compilations with some getting individual releases.^[7]

Board games and toys

Prism Leisure also distributed board games and toys.

References