Alcon Media Group has won its $417.5 million bid to acquire the film catalog of Village Roadshow, which declared bankruptcy this past March.
Alcon, which already has films like “Blade Runner 2049,” “The Blind Side” and the recently rebooted “Garfield” film franchise in its portfolio, made the stalking horse bid this past spring. It now adds 108 Village Roadshow films including “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Wonka,” and the four “Matrix” films, which Alcon estimates will generate $50 million annually.
With the rights to those films comes the right to take part in further titles related to those films’ franchises, the distribution rights of which are owned by Village Roadshow’s studio partners, primarily Warner Bros.
“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,” CEOs Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove said in a statement.
Several factors played into Village Roadshow’s bankruptcy, including a failed effort starting in 2018 to develop its own films and TV shows. The standalone studio yielded six films and seven shows, none of which were successful.
Village Roadshow then sued Warner Bros. over the latter company’s decision to release the 2021 film “The Matrix Resurrections” simultaneously in theaters and on streaming, accusing Warner Bros. of breaching its contract. The lawsuit was moved to arbitration, with Warner winning and being awarded $125 million after it was found that Village Roadshow had failed to pay its share of cofinancing agreements for the film.
In its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Village Roadshow said the lawsuit had “irreparably decimated the working relationship” between the company and Warner and left VR with $18 million in unpaid legal fees.
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.
