Alcon Media Group, an independent film and television production company, sought to purchase the film library of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group, which filed for bankruptcy protection this past March.
Village Roadshow had been in the middle of a legal battle with Warner Bros., who was sued by Village Roadshow for breach of contract due to the studio releasing the 2021 sci-fi sequel, The Matrix Resurrections on Max the same day the film was released in theaters.
In the end, Warner Bros. was successful in arbitration, winning a reported amount of $125 million.
As a result, bidders made offers to purchase Village Roadshow's film library, with Alcon ultimately winning out in the bidding war.
The library is a massive one. As Variety states, it spans 108 films, including numerous features that were, “co-produced and co-financed in association with Warner Brothers Pictures since 1997.”
Some of the films included in this library include, Mad Max: Fury Road, the Ocean’s Eleven series, The Matrix trilogy, Joker, Ready Player One, Sherlock Holmes and Wonka.
On top of the newly acquired Village Roadshow library, Alcon has its own library of popular films, including the rebooted Garfield franchise, The Blind Side, Blade Runner 2049, Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, and Denis Villanueve’s, Prisoners.
The bid for the Village Roadshow library was a major one for Alcon, coming in at $417.5 million.
Under this new acquisition, Alcon will not only have Village Roadshow’s entire library, but also cash flows and rights to distribution. Alcon will also get Village Roadshow’s films that were in development along with both scripted and unscripted television series that were in development.
Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, “co-CEOs of AMG and its production and financing group Alcon Entertainment,” released a joint statement about the acquisition touting that they were “pleased” with the result of the deal.
They added that, ultimately, it was, “accretive to Alcon’s existing film library." Alcon is now the copyright holder of one of the, “largest independent feature film libraries in the world.”
They hinted that this will not be the last time they look for an opportunity such as this, stating that they, “intend to continue to be opportunistic in the future as other attractive assets become available in the marketplace.”
Meanwhile, a source from Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed that of the films in the library, Warner Bros will keep the right to co-finance derivative works of the films and they will also continue to hold the distribution rights to the films.
After a bankruptcy, situations like this make people wonder what becomes of the rights to the films afterwards. While legal issues are never an easy situation, Alcon ultimately made out with this purchase and it will be interesting to see how Alcon will handle these intellectual properties going forward compared to Village Roadshow.
Only time will tell how much different the films will be handled with a different group owning the rights, but this exemplifies how quick and massive changes can occur in the film industry.