LIVE Entertainment

LIVE Entertainment is, ironically, the production company responsible for the movie where basically everyone dies.

Although, to be fair, they were originally called "International Video Entertainment" and added the "L" presumably just for kicks. Before that, they were previously known as Family Home Entertainment, but when they produced Reservoir Dogs their name was revoked when too many parents complained about their children having nightmares about their ears being chopped off.

That's not entirely true. Originally, though, in the early '80s, LIVE Entertainment was in the revolutionary home movie industry. It was revolutionary because VHS had only become more widely available in the '70s. Before then, if you didn't catch something in theaters you'd either have to go without seeing it or wait for thirty years to download it illegally on the internet.

In the early '90s, LIVE branched out into the film distribution business and hooked up with the young Quentin Tarantino for his debut film, Reservoir Dogs. LIVE went on to produce other controversial, bleak films like Requiem for a Dream and Blair Witch Project. (LIVE indeed, eh?)

Lawrence Bender was the producer and actor (he had a cameo, taking a page out of Tarantino's book, as one of the cops chasing down Mr. Pink). Bender has since produced almost all of Tarantino's films and had a hand in a number of other award-winning productions like the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, starring everybody's favorite Vice President, Al Gore.

Bender was going to produce Reservoir Dogs with a low budget using some of Tarantino's friends as actors until they hit the big time and were able to get some funding (about $1.5 million) from LIVE… most of which was spent on fake blood.