Alcon Media Group has won its $417.5 million bid to acquire the film library of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group.
The deal includes Village Roadshow’s entire library of intellectual properties, distribution rights and cash flows. It includes 108 films, as well as the dozens of pictures the company co-produced and co-financed in association with Warner Brothers Pictures since 1997, including “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the “Ocean’s Eleven” series, “The Matrix” trilogy, “Joker,” “Ready Player One,” 2009’s “Sherlock Holmes,” and “Wonka.” In a release touting the purchase, Alcon said the library generates an estimated $50 million annually.
Village Roadshow’s assets also include a development slate of films and scripted and unscripted television series.
Alcon’s films include “Blade Runner 2049,” “The Blind Side,” Christopher Nolan’s “Insomnia,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Prisoners,” and the recently rebooted “Garfield” franchise with Chris Pratt. The company said that after the deal, it is now the copyright holder of one of the largest independent feature film libraries in the world.
Village Roadshow filed for bankruptcy protection in March of this year with $223.8 million in asset-backed secured notes and $163.1 million of senior secured debt, according to court documents. At the time, Village Roadshow was engaged in an expensive legal battle with Warner Bros. over “The Matrix Resurrections,” a 2021 sequel to the sci-fi series.
Several entities responded with bids to acquire its assets. Alcon entered as a stalking horse bidder soon after the filing.
In a joint statement, Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, co-CEOs of AMG and its production and financing group Alcon Entertainment, said they were “pleased” by the deal and called it “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,” the pair added.
The deal was negotiated on behalf of Alcon by the Company’s COO Scott Parish and CFO Jason Kummer. Alcon Media Group is represented by Scott Edell, Brandon Cherry, and Vadim Rubinstein of Loeb & Loeb LLP. Village Roadshow is represented by Justin R. Bernbrock, Matthew T. Benz, Jennifer L. Nassiri and Alyssa Paddock of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP and Joseph M. Mulvihill, Carol E. Thompson and Benjamin C. Carver of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP.
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