News: Warner to Distribute 600 Paramount Titles on Disc

Beginning January 1, 2012, Paramount Pictures stalwarts Indiana Jones, Captain James T. Kirk and Ferris Bueller will have a new distribution home…at Warner Home Entertainment!

James Kirk sceneWarner and Paramount have entered into a three-year agreement wherein Warner will gain exclusive rights to Blu-ray and DVD distribution of more than 600 Paramount catalog titles. Warner will also make Paramount’s UltraViolet offerings available on a nonexclusive basis through Flixster, Warner’s movie streaming service.

The agreement also grants Warner Bros. manufacturing, on-demand rights and the right to include an UltraViolet digital copy bundled with packaged media. Paramount retains digital rights for their titles, including electronic sell-through, VOD and subscription video-on-demand.

The three-year deal, which takes effect Jan. 1, covers U.S. and Canadian rights and includes titles such as Terms of Endearment, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Airplane! The agreement excludes about 100 cornerstone Paramount titles, including the Transformers, Star Trek and Indiana Jones franchises.

“These Paramount catalog titles are the perfect complement to the Warner Bros. library; they will allow us to offer consumers new multifeature film packages and debut many titles on Blu-ray for the first time,” said Ron Sanders, president of Warner Home Video.

Under the same terms, Warner will have access to select new Paramount titles after the initial 26-week release period.

Read more about the agreement at The Hollywood Reporter!

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.