Founded in 1986, Xenon Pictures, Inc. is recognized in the U.S. home entertainment marketplace for creating the first significant labels focused on the African American and Spanish speaking audiences.  

In developing the label, Xenon forged relationships with some of the most revolutionary independent film pioneers: Melvin Van Peebles, Rudy Ray Moore, Jamaa Fanaka, Ralph Bakshi and Perry Henzell to name just a few, and sought out films that are not only commercial, but were truly groundbreaking and have maintained their appeal (across ever-broadening audiences) for decades.  It also developed the US home entertainment initiative for Mexican media powerhouse, Televisa.

Xenon’s most recent film project, “Straight Outta Compton” (the story of the gangster rap group NWA) was produced by Legendary Pictures and released in 2015 through Universal Pictures.  It has grossed over $201 million at the box office alone, and Xenon founder Leigh Savidge garnered an Oscar nomination for best screenplay.

After building a global distribution mechanism, Xenon financed and produced definitive biographies on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahalia Jackson and Death Row Records, and acquired a library of films from notable Black directors including Melvin Van Peebles, Rudy Ray Moore, Jamaa Fanaka, Julie Dash, Tim Story and Robert Townsend. In 2002, the Company added Latin/Spanish content to its focus when it contracted with Mexican media powerhouse Grupo Televisa to create and finance Televisa’s U.S. home entertainment initiative, Televisa Home Entertainment. Over the next eleven years, working with a wide range of Latin/Spanish programming such as classic Spanish language television, top-rated telenovelas and theatrical features, Xenon helped position Televisa as a dominant brand in the home entertainment space.

Today with a library of over 200 titles, Xenon Pictures, Inc. remains one of the few self-distributing media entertainment labels able to offer a full-service distribution platform in North America. The Company looks to acquire a wide range of dynamic independent narrative and documentary feature films that will provoke, excite and inspire consumers seeking content in both the digital and physical disc arenas. The Company’s corporate philosophy can be distilled down to a few simple maxims: innovate, don’t imitate; embrace filmmakers whose actions speak to their goals and finally, listen to what customers and consumers want and find it.