American Pie (film series)
American Pie is a film series, consisting of eight sex comedy films. The first film in the series was released in 1999, by Universal Pictures, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, and gained a cult following amongst young people. The second and third films were released at two-year intervals, whereas the fourth film was released in 2012. A spin-off film series titled "American Pie Presents", which includes four direct-to-video films was released from 2005 to 2009.
Summit Entertainment
Summit Entertainment was founded in 1991 by film producers Bernd Eichinger, Arnon Milchan, and Andrew G. Vajna, . To handle film sales in foreign countries. Summit later expanded and was launched in 1993 by Patrick Wachsberger, Bob Hayward and David Garrett under the name Summit Entertainment LP as a distribution and sales organization. By 1995 they were producing and co-financing films, and by 1997 they started fully financing films. Among the company's early successes was "American Pie", which Summit distributed outside of English-speaking territories. In 2001, it hired producer Erik Feig to evolve the company into a mini-studio, maintaining creative oversight financing and producing its own slate of mainstream wide release films. In 2006, it became an independent film production company, with the addition of Rob Friedman, a former executive at Paramount Pictures. The new company added major development, production, acquisitions, marketing and distribution branches with a financing deal led by Merrill Lynch and other investors giving it access to over $1 billion in financing. Summit Entertainment's films are also distributed theatrically and on home video in Spain, the Netherlands and in Canada by Entertainment One.