Twilight studio Summit signs deal with Redbox
PHYSICAL: Kiosk operator also reached two-year agreement with NCircle
By Danny King and Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 11/2/2009
NOV. 2 | PHYSICAL: Redbox said today that it reached a distribution agreement with Summit Entertainment, giving the largest U.S. movie-rental kiosk operator the right to rent DVDs from the producer of Twilight. Redbox also reached an agreement with NCircle Entertainment, which distributes such children’s titles as Dive Olly Dive! and Johnny Test.
Redbox will distribute Summit titles including Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon for two years starting Jan. 1 and agreed to destroy all DVDs once they’re removed from the machines. Summit titles will be available at more than 15,000 Redbox machines.
“Our titles will be prominently featured,” Summit Home Entertainment president Stephen Nickerson said.
As an indie supplier, Summit will have the security of knowing that Redbox will take a larger number of Summit’s titles over the two-year frame.
“It is essentially an output agreement, so we know they will be taking our titles,” said Nickerson. “We don’t have to negotiate with each title. As their business grows, we will grow with them. As we put titles out, we’ll know what our business with Redbox will be.”
Nickerson wouldn’t discuss specific deal terms, but said revenue-sharing and guaranteed market share are not included.
Summit plans to create marketing programs with Redbox, Nickerson said. Many of the machines include pictures of a select number of titles currently or about to become available, and Redbox is aggressive about e-mailing customers about title updates.
The deal Redbox signed with NCircle, whose library also includes Jim Henson Co.’s Sid the Science Kid and Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, also runs for two years, though Redbox didn’t disclose a start date.
Despite the headway Redbox, a unit of coin-vending-machine maker Coinstar, continues to make with independent studios such as Lionsgate and Summit, the kiosk operator has lawsuits against major studios Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video, which have taken issue with Redbox’s $1 a night rentals and are prohibiting the sale of their new DVD releases to kiosk operators until at least four weeks after their street date.
Major studios Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment all have deals with Redbox.
Summit’s Twilight set DVD sales records in March, selling 5.2 million DVD and Blu-ray Disc units in its first week on shelves.
