Pure Flix Signs Long Term Distribution Agreement with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Faith-based film company Pure Flix Entertainment (Pure Flix) and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (UPHE) announced today a long term, multi-year distribution services agreement. Under the arrangement, UPHE will exclusively handle sales and distribution services for the Blu-ray, DVD, Electronic Sell-through and Video-on-Demand platforms of Pure Flix new release films as well as for its diverse catalog of titles across the USA.    Pure Flix will oversee consumer marketing to support UPHE, and will continue to manage sales, marketing and distribution for the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA).

The pact will begin with the January 26, 2016 home entertainment release of Woodlawn, starring Sean Astin, Sherry Shepherd, Nic Bishop, C. Thomas Howell, Caleb Castille, and Academy Award winner Jon Voight, which is widely available today on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD and On Demand. Also on deck in 2016 is the highly anticipated God's Not Dead 2, starring Melissa Joan Hart, Jesse Metcalfe, David A.R. White, Hayley Orrantia, Ernie Hudson, Sadie Roberts, Robin Givens, Maria Canals-Barrera, and Fred Thompson, with special appearances by Pat Boone, Ray Wise, Governor Mike Huckabee, and Newsboys. Uni has not stated whether their 28 day holdback street date policy for public libraries will apply.

Film Adaptation of James Patterson's MIDDLE SCHOOL Cast Announced

CBS Films announced today the cast for the theatrical motion picture adaptation of James Patterson's award-winning, bestselling series MIDDLE SCHOOL, arriving in theaters October 2016.

The cast will include Lauren Graham ("Parenthood," "Gilmore Girls"), Rob Riggle ("22 Jump Street," "Hotel Transylvania 2"), Thomas Barbusca ("Preacher," "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp"), Andrew Daly ("Review," "Black-ish"), Adam Pally ("The Mindy Project," "The To Do List"), Efren Ramirez ("Constantine," "Napoleon Dynamite"), Isabela Moner ("100 Things to Do Before High School," "Dora and Friends: Into the City!") and Alexa Nisenson ("Constantine") are joining Griffin Gluck ("About a Boy," "Red Band Society").  Steve Carr is set to direct the film from a screenplay by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Kara Holden. Leopoldo Gout and Bill Robinson are producing and James Patterson and Steve Bowen are executive producing for James Patterson Entertainment.

The first entry in the series, MIDDLE SCHOOL: THE WORST YEARS OF MY LIFE, chronicles the trials and triumphs of Rafe Khatchadorian (Griffin Gluck) as he uses all of his wits to battle bullies, hormones and the tyrannical, test-obsessed Principal Dwight (Daly). Graham co-stars as Rafe's mother Jules, along with Riggle as her boyfriend Bear, Nisenson as Rafe's sister Georgia, Barbusca as Rafe's best friend Leo, Moner as Rafe's first crush Jeanne, Ramirez as Gus and Pally as his favorite teacher, Mr. Teller.

Lionsgate Announces "Borderlands" Video Game Movie Plans

Lionsgate , a premier global content leader, is teaming with the publisher and creators of Borderlands, and renowned producers Avi and Ari Arad to adapt Gearbox Software's critically-acclaimed blockbuster video game Borderlands into a tent-pole feature film, the parties announced today.  Borderlands is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game created and developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K, a wholly owned label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

The award-winning Borderlands franchise has been lauded by critics and over the years has built a passionate global fan base, shipping more than 26 million copies around the world since its launch in 2009, including 8 million copies shipped during Take Two's fiscal year 2015 alone. Set in the frontier of a sci-fi universe, Borderlands is best known for Gearbox's blending of irreverent humor and characters, with a unique comic-book art style, and co-operative four-player genre-bending, loot-grabbing gameplay. It's a franchise that in the last six years has ushered in a new and popular category of first-person shooters.

The Borderlands film creative team will be led by producers Avi and Ari Arad, who are responsible for some of the most successful motion picture and television franchises in history, including Iron Man, Spider Man, The Amazing Spider Man, X-Men, Ghost Rider and Blade.

Alchemy Acquires ANConnect and Anderson Digital

With the intention of increasing its output of independent content, television and film distributor Alchemy has acquired ANconnect and Anderson Digital and will form a strategic alliance with ARC Entertainment.

As part of the deal, in the works since May,  the company has acquired ANconnect's distribution assets and the entire distribution arm of Anderson Media Corporation. Formerly owned by Freyr Thor and former Sony Pictures Home Entertainment exec, Steve Lyons, ARC Entertainment is a global digital distributor of feature films and television series.  Under their new partnership, Alchemy will optimize and distribute ARC's media assets, provide financial support for the Bentonville Film Festival and allow for distribution of titles associated with the festival, both physically and digitally. In exchange, Alchemy is gaining about fifty new content partners, including Badasarian Productions, DreamWorks Animation's non-theatrical and classics divisions and Microsoft.

These multiple transactions make Alchemy the largest, non-studio aggregator for Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Sam’s Club. The deals also expand Alchemy's annual content flow to over 1,300 films and more than 3,000 television episodes.

Lionsgate Announces MONOPOLY Game Movie

Lionsgate, a premier next generation global content leader, and Hasbro are partnering to bring the iconic game MONOPOLY to the big screen, the two companies announced today. Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA award-winning writer/producer/director Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show, Gattaca, The Terminal) will write the screenplay for MONOPOLY, which will be produced by Lionsgate and Hasbro's Allspark Pictures. Lionsgate will finance the movie.

"Hasbro is a partner with incredible global reach, one of the most compelling brand portfolios in the world, and a signature brand in MONOPOLY that has multigenerational appeal," said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-President Erik Feig. "Andrew Niccol is the ultimate world creator responsible for such disparate and imaginative films as The Truman Show, Gattaca, and The Terminal. He is an inspired choice to develop this timeless property into a big, crowd-pleasing event film that will appeal to kids, families and anyone who has ever played the MONOPOLY game."

"As we've seen with our other movies and television series, Hasbro's brands are terrific for creating engaging stories and appealing characters that speak to audiences of all ages, and together with Lionsgate we will bring MONOPOLY to life on the big screen," said Stephen Davis, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer of Hasbro. "MONOPOLY is one of the most popular games of all time, and it will translate into a film with tremendous global appeal and marketability based on a script being deftly written by the remarkable Andrew Niccol."

FUNimation Entertainment Signs Distribution Deal with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

FUNimation Entertainment and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment have reached an exclusive multi-year distribution services agreement.  will manage distribution of FUNimation's entire DVD and Blu-ray line, as well as sales in the USA and Canada.   John Morici, Managing Director, U.S. and Canada, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, and Mike DuBoise, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, FUNimation, jointly made the announcement today.

This agreement will allow FUNimation, North America's anime market share leader, to continue delivering on its commitment to serve anime fans everywhere and to expand its leadership in home entertainment. "Pairing Universal's 'best-in-class' home entertainment distribution infrastructure with FUNimation's superior anime properties, along with our marketing, production, and fan engagement capabilities, effectively positions our companies for enduring success," said Gen Fukunaga, CEO and founder of FUNimation. "We believe this new strategic agreement will create an important opportunity for us to strengthen our physical distribution business."

"We're excited to partner with FUNimation, the premier anime company in both the United States and Canada. They have a proven track record for marketing a compelling slate of titles as evidenced with such recent releases as 'Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods,' 'Attack on Titan,' 'Cowboy Bebop,' 'Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign,' and their upcoming theatrical release of 'Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F','" said Morici.  "We are pleased to enter into a distribution services partnership with this talented group and look forward to our collaboration."

June is "Entertainment Ratings Awareness Month"

EMA has declared June to be “Entertainment Ratings Awareness Month.” As part of “Entertainment Ratings Awareness Month,” EMA, Entertainment Merchants Association,  is encouraging all libraries and retailers of videos and video game products to emphasize the motion picture and video game ratings, as appropriate, to their patrons / customers.

“Entertainment Ratings Awareness Month” is declared annually to promote the use of entertainment ratings by encouraging stores and libraries  to review their ratings and labeling education and enforcement policies, reemphasizing those policies to their staffs, and educating their customers about the movie and video game ratings systems and library/store policies.

“Retailers are committed to assisting parents in making informed decisions about what videos and video games are appropriate for their children,” noted Mark Fisher, President & CEO of EMA. “Entertainment Ratings Awareness Month affords us an opportunity to highlight this function and ensure that its importance is communicated at all levels in the retail environment.”

Baker & Taylor is a proud member of EMA.

Music Industry Moves to a Friday Street Date on July 10, 2015

The shift to Fridays as the music industry's global release day for music cds, vinyl and digital will begin on July 10, 2015.  Friday will be the new Tuesday beginning this summer, when the worldwide music industry begins putting out new releases on most music buyers' paydays. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the British-based organization that acts as a music-biz United Nations, announced that the new plan would go into effect this summer.

The organization is saying that the change will benefit the industry as a whole, since it would reduce piracy (since albums very often come out before the USA internationally), allow artists to focus their social-media campaigns and, using the words of the IFPI's statement, "re-ignite excitement and a sense of occasion around the release of new music." The decision, which had been in the works since at least last summer, came after the IFPI talked with artists, unions, labels and retailers. It also cited consumer research that suggested Friday and Saturday were the days people would be most interested in buying new music.

The Music Business Association, an organization that represents USA music retailers, as well as firms such as Spotify, Rdio and many international music stores have stated their support of the initiative.

Sony Pic's INFERNO Starts Filming!

Sony Pictures has announced that principal photography has started on Inferno, the new film in Columbia Pictures' Robert Langdon series.  A series of films that has taken in more than $1.2B  worldwide a the box office!  The film is currently scheduled for release in theatres on October 14, 2016, no word yet on DVD/BD release.

In the film, Academy Award winner Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon.  He is joined by an international cast of actors, including Felicity Jones, Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, Ben Foster, and Sidse Babett Knudsen.  The film is directed by Ron Howard and produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.  The screenplay is by David Koepp, based on the book by Dan Brown.  The project's executive producers are David Householter, Dan Brown, Anna Culp, and William M. Connor.

Pictured: (Left to Right) Tom Hanks ("Robert Langdon"); Sidse Babett Knudsen ("Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey"); Ron Howard, director/producer; Omar Sy ("Christoph Bouchard"); Dan Brown "Inferno" Author; Felicity Jones ("Dr. Sienna Brooks");