Filmco

{{Verification|date=September 2022}}{{Short description|Australian investment company}}

Filmco was an Australian investment company used by producers to raise funds to invest in Australian movies. It flourished during the 10BA era.{{cite news|author=Pamela G Hollie|date=Nov 16, 1981|title=Australian movies seek U.S. backing|work=The New York Times|id={{ProQuest|121645217}}}}

The company was formed in 1980 by Peter Fox and Bob Sanders (who merged his Pact Productions into the company). Pact Productions had provided finance for Harlequin. Breaker Morant and Sara Dane; it was a subsidiary of Adelaide Holdings. They were joined by John Fitzgerald, a former lawyer at the South Australian Film Corporation, who acted as executive producer. David Stratton wrote that "the Filmco slate consisted of some of the most dismal films ever produced in Australia" and represented "a scandalous waste of money".David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p. 5

In June 1981 it was announced Filmco helped raise finance for Burning Man, Something Wicked this way comes, For the Term of His Natural Life, Double Deal and Billy West, and it would raise money for Turkey Shoot. {{cite news|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=13 June 1981|page=42|title=No niz like film biz for Peter Fox}}

Peter Fox was killed in a car accident on 1 December 1981.{{cite journal |title=Getting into the movies |journal=The Bulletin |date=29 November 1983 |volume=103 |pages=126–138 |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1759900441/view?sectionId=nla.obj-1778084371&partId=nla.obj-1759983338#page/n121/mode/1up |access-date=28 April 2022}}

In 1985 a judge ordered eight Sydney stockbrokers to repay at least $615,000 to which they borrowed in 1981 to finance four films by Filmco: Early Frost (budget $1 million), The Dark Room ($1.1 million), For the Term of His Natural Life ($4 million) and A Dangerous Summer ($2.9 million). The films were not box office successes and the stock brokers refused to repay the loans when they matured in November 1983.{{cite news|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=15 March 1985|first=Malcolm|last=Wilson|page=19|title=Brokers to repay Australian film loans}}