(1 August 2005 12:00 pm)

MUMBAI: The US-based Lions Gate Entertainment, an independent filmed entertainment producer and distributor, has closed its asset purchase agreement to acquire substantially all of the Modern Entertainment Ltd. library.

The acquisition includes the rights held by Modern to leading titles from Vestron, Dino DeLaurentiis and other libraries within the Modern Entertainment family, including Conan the Barbarian, Halloween 2 and 3, And God Created Woman, Amityville 2, Eight Million Ways to Die, Hercules in New York and Earth Girls are Easy, states an official release.

"This is an accretive, strategic acquisition that meets all of our transactional criteria and reflects our commitment to continue growing our library base as a source of stable, reliable cash flow," said Lions Gate Entertainment president Steve Beeks. "The Modern Entertainment library contains a broad range of quality content and brings valuable long-term VOD and TV rights that are consistent with our ongoing strategy of transitioning our core asset into a library of the future."

Beeks pointed out that many of the titles acquired have been purchased by Modern in perpetuity, more than 95 per cent include television rights and a majority of the titles include VOD rights, further positioning Lions Gate's library to exploit future technologies.