Much of the pulp TV programming that RHI Entertainment Inc. churns out is a lampooner’s dream. "Killer Wave." "Blood Monkey." "Black Swarm." You get the picture. That didn’t stop investors from handing the New York-based production company $189 million in its initial public stock offering on Wednesday. But by the end of the stock’s first session of trading, the people who bought in may have been feeling like one of the hapless victims in RHI’s horror fare: "What was I thinking opening that door?" The deal was priced at $14 a share late Tuesday, well below the $16-to-$18 range RHI hoped to get. But even $14 turned out to be too high: The stock immediately fell as trading began Wednesday, dropped as low as $13 and closed at $13.50. An instant discount is never a good sign for a new offering. RHI is the production vehicle of the Halmi family -- Robert Halmi Jr., 51, and his father Robert Sr., 84. Their niches are made-for-TV movies and TV miniseries, some of which have been critical successes (the Western "Lonesome Dove" in 1989, for one). RHI’s 2007 science fiction series "Tin Man," a reimagining of "The Wizard of Oz," was the biggest ratings hit in the Sci Fi channel’s history. A lot of what the Halmis have produced over the last 30 years, however, has just filled content space on the networks and cable. Critics be damned, the Halmis love to put their own stamp on remakes of the classics: "Moby Dick," for instance, and "Gulliver’s ...
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