Mumbai: After roping in Universal in October last year and Warner Bros in July this year, BIG Home Entertainment has now entered into a licensing agreement with Paramount Home Entertainment.
This deal provides Big Home Entertainment with the exclusive home video distribution rights for Paramount Home Entertainment, DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. and DreamWorks Pictures in India and Sri Lanka, which was earlier distributed by Saregama.
As part of this alliance, BIG Music & Home Entertainment will market and distribute home video products of Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, Paramount Vantage, MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies.
Among the titles to hit the shelves soon are this year’s releases Indiana Jones, Kung Fu Panda and The Iron Man. The DVDs and VCDs will reach the markets from the first week of October onwards.
Additionally, Paramount’s library consists of titles such as The Godfather films, The Ten Commandments, Roman Holiday, Mission Impossible series and Transformers. DreamWorks Animation’s titles include the Shrek series, Shark Tale and Madagascar while DreamWorks Pictures’ catalogue includes A Beautiful Mind, American Beauty and Munich.
Commenting on this alliance BIG Music and Home Entertainment CEO Kulmeet Makkar says, "Paramount Home Entertainment Global is one of the largest home entertainment brands in the world with unarguably the best line-up of new releases, and a fantastic library of catalogue titles. BIG Music & Home Entertainment, with its expertise, focus and resources will work toward tapping into the huge potential that Paramount’s library offers in India and Sri Lanka."
Paramount Home Entertainment Asia Pacific regional director Zubair Hassan adds, "Paramount is excited and proud to be associated with BIG Music and Home Entertainment in India and Sri Lanka. We recognize the tremendous developments taking place in the Indian marketplace and the opportunity they provide for our titles. Given the breadth and quality of our film slate, Paramount is confident that BIG Music and Home Entertainment will help to ensure that our titles are made available to our valued Indian and Sri Lankan consumers."
With Universal, Warner and now Paramount under its belt, Big Home Entertainment has close to 60 per cent of the market share in home video category of Hollywood titles. The films from other studios like Sony Pictures are distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, India and Fox Studios and Disney are distributed by Excel Home Video.
Along with the above mentioned movie titles, home video of movies like The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk and The Mummy 3, the India distribution rights of which are also with Big Home entertainment will release soon too.
The marketing and promotion of these movies will be done via modes of on-ground activity, outdoor campaign and will be supplemented with television, internet and radio.
