Copyright Deadline
UPDATED, 1:41 PM: Alcon Media Group has been awarded derivative rights to most of the titles it acquired when it bought Village Roadshow Entertainment Group‘s film library in the summer. The move stems from a hearing Wednesday in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court. “The court’s ruling today will allow Alcon to complete its comprehensive purchase of the Village Roadshow assets,” AMG CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson said in a statement. “Alcon looks forward to working collaboratively with Warner Bros, as we have for over a quarter-century, to partner in the exploitation of the derivative rights to these many great films across multiple platforms.” Derivative rights refer to the exclusive right of a copyright holder to authorize the creation of new projects based on an original copyrighted work. PREVIOUSLY, June 10: Alcon Media Group LLC has won its $417.5 million bid to acquire Village Roadshow Entertainment Group’s library of 108 feature film titles, Alcon said Wednesday. The deal includes Village Roadshow’s entire library of intellectual properties, distribution rights and cash flows. The library includes rights and royalties to the motion pictures that the company co-produced and co-financed in association with Warner Bros since 1997, including such films as Mad Max: Fury Road, the Ocean’s Eleven series, The Matrix trilogy, Joker, Ready Player One, the Sherlock Holmes franchise, Wonka and others that collectively generate an estimated $50 million annually. More specifically: Alcon acquired the participations and the naked copyrights in the Warner Bros. films co-financed by Village. No other rights in the Warner Bros. films were part of this auction, including distribution rights, which are owned by WB, and the right to co-finance derivative works. Village Roadshow’s assets also include a development slate of films and scripted and unscripted television series. Village Roadshow filed for bankruptcy protection in March, and several entities had responded with bids to acquire its assets. Alcon entered as a “stalking horse” bidder soon after the filing and pursued the acquisition when the deal was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The final days of Village Roadshow saw the production company late on its payments to writers, which drew the ire of the WGA West. Essentially, Village Roadshow’s majority stakeholder, Vine Alternative Investments, the specialized asset manager of $1.3 billion investments, was having cash problems. This ultimately led to the departure of Village Roadshow CEO Steve Mosko. Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, co-CEOs of Alcon Media Group and its production and financing group Alcon Entertainment, said in a statement today: “We are pleased to acquire Village Roadshow’s library of major studio distributed feature films, which are accretive to Alcon’s existing film library. We intend to continue to be opportunistic in the future as other attractive assets become available in the marketplace.” Alcon’s library already includes such movies as Blade Runner 2049, Oscar winner The Blind Side, Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners and the recently rebooted Garfield franchise featuring Chris Pratt as the portly orange tabby. The Village deal was negotiated on behalf of Alcon by the company’s COO Scott Parish and CFO Jason Kummer. Alcon Media Group is represented by Loeb & Loeb LLP. Village Roadshow is represented by Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP and Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP. Erik Pedersen contributed to this report.
