MUMBAI: The Jim Henson Company and Lionsgate have entered into a multi-year home entertainment distribution agreement. Under the terms of the arrangement, Lionsgate obtains the North American distribution rights to over 350 hours of content in The Jim Henson Company’s film and television library including television series, television specials and catalog home entertainment titles for DVD, EST and VOD channels.
The first new titles scheduled to be released are Fraggle Rock: The Complete Final Season (Season 4) and Fraggle Rock: A Merry Fraggle Holiday in November 2009.
Lionsgate executive vice president of marketing and family entertainment Anne Parducci said, "The Jim Henson Company has an incredibly rich legacy of properties. The Company’s works are beloved by fans both old and young and we relish the opportunity to be able to bring properties like Fraggle Rock and Emmet Otter into the home. Adding The Jim Henson Company name to our extensive family library is a major coup for us. We look forward to a long and successful partnership."
"Lionsgate has already proven itself to be a terrific distributor of favorites like ‘Fraggle Rock’ and ‘Emmet Otter’s Jug-band Christmas,’ demonstrating the creativity and care these titles deserve and our fans expect," said Schube. "We are looking forward to collaborating with them to release more classic titles as well as to introduce lesser-known gems from the Company’s library to our audience," added The Jim Henson Company president & COO Peter Schube.
For The Jim Henson Company, the agreement is part of its current strategy to establish new brands like the recent preschool hits Sid the Science Kid and the upcoming Dinosaur Train, as well as to relaunch existing library titles with strong partners across all platforms and media, as seen with the development of the upcoming Fraggle Rock and Power of the Dark Crystal features and Farscape webisodes.
