What's The Deal? The Sundance Special

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Michael Shedletsky

Sundance Film Festival 2012 in Park City, Utah has not disappointed so far, with flurries of activity early and often. Here are a few of the recent film and television deals:

  • Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions purchased the US rights to Arbitrage, a Richard Gere financial thriller, for about $2 million.
  • Entertainment One acquired the North American rights to Wish You Were Here.
  • Fox Search Light bought Beasts of the Southern Wild after winning a bidding war against Weinstein, Sony, Focus and a few others. However, Sony and Focus still managed to make a few other acquisitions. Fox also purchased the worldwide distribution rights to The Surrogate for about $6 million.
  • Sony Pictures Classics bought the rights to Celeste and Jesse Forever across North America, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Bidding continues for the remaining foreign rights.
  • Sony Pictures Worldwide acquired Samuel Goldwyn’s Robot and Frank.
  • Focus Features bought Seth Rogen’s newest comedy For a Good Time, Call ….
  • IFC Films acquired Liberal Arts and IFC Midnight acquired The Pact, bothwithin North America. Meanwhile, Picturehouse Entertainment and Revolver Entertainment bought the UK rights to Liberal Arts and The Imposter.
  • Magnolia bought the North American rights to V/H/S horror film for over $1 million, after a successful bidding war. Apparently, Magnolia has chosen an alternative release schedule for the film by initially releasing it through VOD prior to a theatrical release.
  • And, Millenium Entertainment acquired the US rights to Robert De Niro film Red Lights.

On the television side, National Geographic acquired the rights to climate change documentary, Chasing Ice.

A complete wrap up of all of this year’s action at Sundance will follow soon.

 

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What's the Deal?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Michael Shedletsky

 Adding a fresh new piece to the Signal, I will be providing brief updates on recent deal news and activity in the industry.

  • To begin close to home, Lionsgate started off 2012 quickly by announcing that it has acquired Summit Entertainment for approximately $412.5 million. Lionsgate will pay Summit in cash and stock, and in return receives Summit’s content library as well as a healthy amount of cash added to their balance sheet. Summit shareholders are used to seeing box office success from teen series Twilight and now Lionsgate hopes to duplicate that success with new franchise The Hunger Games, with the first installment set to release in March.
  • If you thought 2011 was a big year for deals at Sundance Film Festival, then get ready for this year. While no deals can be reported as of yet from Sundance (which begins tomorrow), there will likely be a long list of distribution deals in just a few days. This year, every movie that will be part of the Premieres category is still for sale. It will be interesting to see which distributors snatch up all of the Canadian rights this year.
  • On the other side of the globe, Cinemacraft, an interactive media company based in Singapore, has just raised funds for both a new interactive video ad network, as well as a consumer video application. Expect their applications to be released in Japan, USA, India and Indonesia in the near future. They will be targeting the smartphone and tablet media content users as more and more people begin weaning off traditional television and look for alternate ways to watch TV on the go. Should we expect a renewed debate over vertical integration and mobile broadcasting as company’s like Cinemacraft attempt to present new mobile applications?

 

 

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