American International Pictures was formed in 1954 by James H. Nicholson and entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff originally as "American Releasing Corporation", dedicated to releasing independently produced, low-budget and genre films (such as horror, sci-fi, and African-American), primarily of interest to the teenagers from the 1950s to late 1970s. In April 1956, ARC merged with global production company International Productions (not to be confused with "International Pictures", who already merged with Universal Pictures and formed "Universal-International" in 1946) to form AIP. In 1979, AIP was acquired by Filmways, Inc. for $4.3 million, and in 1980, AIP was folded into Filmways becoming "Filmways Pictures". Today, most of the AIP library is owned by MGM, via their acquisition of Orion Pictures, which acquired Filmways in 1982 (later reincorporated itself as "Orion Pictures Corporation" in June), except for a select few of AIP's early releases. Some of these (like The Fast and the Furious) went into the public domain, and some were retained by Samuel Z. Arkoff's estate, while 11 others were retained by James H. Nicholson's estate; these early releases are rarely seen now, as the estate effectively refuses to license them, but when they were still available in the early 1990s (and were featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000), they, along with the still-available Arkoff-owned films (currently licensed to AMC and Lionsgate for distribution), were distributed by Teleworld, Inc.
On October 7, 2020, MGM announced that they would bring back AIP to distribute films that would get a limited release in cinemas. Their first film after being revived was Breaking News in Yuba County, released on February 12, 2021.