The story
The year of its creation, 1986, was a turning point for David Winters. After being overruled on a casting decision for Thrashin', Winters made the professional decision to control all aspects of future projects. AIP was organized by Winters with partners; Prior and Yuval. That year, it set up a distribution arm, AIP Distribution, and a production studio branch, AIP Studios, and decided to introduce two features at the Cannes Film Festival, and Patricia J. Pawlak as vice president of international sales that were controlled by the studio.
Although Josh Brolin was ultimately cast in Thrashin', Winters' choice was a "pre-21 Jump Street", Johnny Depp. Winters had previously been a partner in the successful Winters-Rosen organization in the 1970s.
In 1987, Action International Pictures teamed up with Sony Video Software to handle distribution on the first four AIP film titles for home video distribution, which included Deadly Prey, Mankillers, Chase and Nightwars, via AIP Distribution, before setting up its own home video label, which was AIP Home Video.
From Wikipedia’s article on Action International Pictures, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4