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Lions Gate Expands Its Library


Lions Gate Entertainment has announced that it has agreed to buy the entire library of films held by Modern Entertainment, a unit of European pay TV broadcaster Modern Times Group. The deal adds 322 films to Lions Gate's library of 8,000+ movies, including rights to films such as Conan the Barbarian, Ragtime, Amityville II, Halloween II & III, The Dead Zone, And God Created Woman, Eight Million Ways to Die and Earth Girls Are Easy. Many of the titles in the deal will be owned in perpetuity, with more than 95% including television rights along with a majority including video-on-demand rights.

Lions Gate also noted that the acquisition will unite all rights to the Modern-owned Vestron titles under its roof, including all rights to Dirty Dancing. According to the studio, the Patrick Swayze film sells over one million DVDs per year. Along with the recent sequel to the film, Lions Gate has a new musical stage play touring Australia and Japan, is mulling a reality television series and is planning a 20th anniversary theatrical and DVD re-release of the original film in late 2007.

Could this mean that we could finally see a SE for Halloween II that includes the deleted scenes and alternate TV cut that were originally planned for the Universal release? I'm crossing my fingers. Maybe we'll also get Conan re-released with a suped-up DTS track (overseas has this, but the DTS track has been claimed less than spectacular).

Lions Gate = Trimark, right?

Sounds like they only got titles like RAGTIME, CONAN, HALLOWEEN for cable rights.

Lion's Gate bought Trimark several years ago, yes.

Variety has a more detailed article.

So, does this mean Universal's plans to release Conan the Barbarian as one of its first HD-DVD titles have to be scrapped? Do the current DVDs of these other titles have to be pulled?

Wasn't Conan filmed with mono sound? It would be impossible to do a suped up DTS track without recreating the entire soundtrack. I can only imagine how horrible that would be. (Shudders at thought of sound effects in Jaws and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 5.1 remixes)

Doesn't look like they have the DVD rights anyway.

Could this just be an article about the European (R2) rights to these films?

I was just coming in to post this. It's in Variety's INTERNATIONAL section, which deals with stuff happening outside of the U.S.

Des that mean we get to see crap fullscreen releases of all of these movies?

I'm all for adding new life to mono soundtracks as long as there is the original mono track there for completist and comparative purposes. Conan was such an epic-type film with a beautiful score by Basil Poledouris. Does that mean that the expansive score was originally recorded mono as well, or just down-mixed to mono for the film? I have the Region 4 Conan disc that has the 5.1 Dolby Digital track, and believe me, it's much nicer hearing the music with somewhat of a fuller sound. Plus, I wouldn't mind hearing more thunderous horse gallops, sword clashes, and overall ambiance.

Another theatrical reissue of DIRTY DANCING?

Yikes. Was nobody paying attention in 1997?

Vestron Titles?? OH MY MONSTER SQUAD!!

not sure if this is across the pond or not..

Not to mention another (4th) DVD release...wasn't the last one the "Ultimate Edition?" Maybe the next one will be the "Ultimate Ultimate Edition."

You don't necessarily need to create new sound effects when making a 5.1 mix out of a film that originally had a mono soundtrack. If you have the original DME (dialogue, music, effects) stems for the mono soundtrack, you can make a new stereo surround mix out of it from scratch, while keeping all of the original elements intact.

DJ

Yeah, just like music if the mono master was created by mixing down the multitracks or from a stereo/multi-channel fold-down, and those original multitracks still exist you can remix to 5.1 without manipulating anything. Multitrack recording has been the norm in motion picture soundtracks since the late '50s. So for most big studio releases produced during that time period a stereo or even surround track should be possible provided that the original multi's are still available and in reasonably good condition. You can also re-record orchestral material and basic sound effects to accompany the original dialog and other "unduplicable" elements, though that is a bit of an affront to a lot of film purists.

thats the rumor going round these days. They put the vhs out years ago.

I gotta admit that the press release I received wasn't clear on the whole international/domestic angle. What it said is basically waht my news post was.

My guess is that its mainly for international rights, but probably domestic as well (on an individual title basis).

My fingers are crossed for "Moster Squad" as well!

By THE DEAD ZONE, are they referring to the current TV series or the 1980s David Cronenberg film? Because I thought the film was owned completely by Paramount....

Why is Lion's Gate buying more titles when they haven't even bothered to make a DVD of Noah Baumbach's "Kicking and Screaming"?? This is one of my favorite films, one of the best (and funniest) of 90's, and it's just gathering dust on an out of print VHS.

I've been boycotting their DVD's for almost 4 years till they release this one. I'll even take a bare-bones, just put it out.

Remember this is Lions Gate, there is a good chance IF they release MONSTER SQUAD, it will pan and scan. But this film IS NOT a Vestron film, it just came out on vestron video, the company who made it, Taft/Worldvision, is now controlled by Paramount, so lets hope Paramount has the rights, so it will be widescreen on dvd.