Produzioni Europee Associati (PEA) is an Italian film production company founded in 1962 by Alberto Grimaldi to produce international co-productions.[1] It released its first feature film The Shadow of Zorro (L'ombra di Zorro) in December that year. Its next production was its first Spaghetti Western: Texas Ranger (I due violenti) released in 1964.
After the immense success of A Fistful of Dollars (1964) in popularizing the genre, United Artists financed the rest of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy films—For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)—and signed a contract to distribute PEA films.[2]
In 1976, due to the growing popularity of the cinema of the United States, PEA lost vitality (as well as viewers) and eventually limited its work solely to productions in Europe.[3]