Silver Screen Partners refers to four limited partnerships organized as an alternative funding source for movies. The managing general partner for the partnerships was Silver Screen Management, Inc. Former U.S. President George W. Bush was a member of Silver Screen Management, Inc.'s board of directors from 1983 to 1993. This became a part of the campaign issue over Hollywood's "pervasiveness of violence", centered around Silver Screen Management Board's approval of the highly violent horror-suspense film The Hitcher, when Bush ran for president in 2000.
History
The original Silver Screen Partners, L.P. was organized by New York film investment broker Roland W. Betts to fund movies for HBO in 1982. The limited partnerships sold through EF Hutton were oversubscribed and raised $83 million. HBO made a 50% guarantee on their investment for exclusive cable rights. Another 40% was guaranteed by Thorn EMI, a British firm, for foreign distribution and foreign TV and videocassette markets. Additional income was lined up for domestic videocassette sales. HBO's film division was just starting out so film output was slow. For the Silver Screen/HBO films, the partnership was active in the process from selecting film pitches and negotiating release dates with the distributor. In 1984, the first HBO/Silver Screen movie, Flashpoint, was released through TriStar Pictures as were all the HBO/Silver Screen films. Organized in 1985, Silver Screen Partners II, L.P. financed films for The Walt Disney Company with $193 million from 20,000 limited partners. Silver Screen was hands off with Disney given its name and new management team led by Michael Eisner, formerly at Paramount. HBO was expecting that Silver Screen would return to them for its third limited partnership. However, in January 1987, Silver Screen III began financing movies for Disney with $300 million raised, the largest amount raised for a film financing limited partnership by E. F. Hutton. Silver Screen's fourth limited partnership was also set up to finance Disney's studios. On October 23, 1990, The Walt Disney Company formed Touchwood Pacific Partners which supplanted the Silver Screen Partnership series as their movie studios' primary source of funding. In 1991, Silver Screen Partners III, L.P. along with the other production companies were sued for copyright infringement over Who Framed Roger Rabbit's "End Title" song.
Structure
The partnerships paid for the movie's production costs and shared in the gross dollars in all markets from theater to television. Limited partners received their return before the production company could defray any of their expenses. This is preferred by investors as it guarantees some return if the film fails or has budget overrun and from the producer's overhead. Nor can profits from a single film be used to cover losses on other films, but this makes the partnership somewhat risky.
