Lionsgate Lands DVD Rights to Marvel Show

NEW YORK/SANTA
MONICA/VANCOUVER, July 31: Lionsgate has acquired the home-entertainment
distribution rights for the new animated series Wolverine & The X-Men from Marvel Entertainment.

Lionsgate retains the U.S.
home-distribution rights to all 26 half-hour episodes of the series, which is a
co-production with Toonz Entertainment and First Serve International. In the
series, scheduled to air on Nicktoons Network in January 2009, the X-Men led by
Wolverine fight to save the world from destruction after seeing what the future
would be like if they quit their crime-fighting ways.

Lionsgate was selected as
the distribution partner following the success of its current development,
production and distribution relationship with Marvel for original animated
direct-to-DVD features, including Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2,
Doctor Strange and The
Invincible Iron Man.
Each of these
titles debuted as the number one children’s non-theatrical release for the
week.

Marvel’s next animated
feature, Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, will be released September 2. The companies also have a theatrical
relationship, which began in April 2004 with Lionsgate’s release of The
Punisher
, that sees Lionsgate
releasing The Punisher: War Zone
in December.

Anne Parducci, the
executive VP of marketing and family entertainment for Lionsgate, said: “As
evidenced by the recent success of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk in theatres, there is nothing hotter in Hollywood
than Marvel’s amazing lineup of superheroes. We have had tremendous results
with our Marvel animated features and this deal reflects the next chapter in
our on-going relationship. These series are based upon proven entities on the
big screen and DVD and they will feature a similar animation style to the
Marvel DVDs we are currently releasing.”

—By Jackie Stewart