National Lampoon Scores Eight-Picture Deal with Lizard Cinema Trade

LOS ANGELES, January 22: National Lampoon has secured an
output deal for eight feature films with Russian distributor Lizard Cinema
Trade, including theatrical, home-video and broadcast rights.

Under the terms of the deal—which National Lampoon’s
president of worldwide distribution, Tom Daniels, announced exclusively to World
Screen—Lizard will distribute the
films across Russia and the CIS. Titles include National Lampoon’s
Bagboy, which was the first in-house
production in the company’s 35-year history, as well as the originals National
Lampoon’s Ratko and National
Lampoon’s 301.

This agreement comes on the heels of National Lampoon inking
further multi-picture deals with Equinoxe in Canada, Australia’s Force
Entertainment, Front Row in the Middle East and Beta Film across Germany,
Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the company has secured a deal
with Comedy Central for the first broadcast-window premiere rights to a
multi-picture package of National Lampoon titles.

On expanding into the international market, Daniels told World
Screen: “For years you’ve heard that comedy
doesn’t translate or that it’s problematic, but I’m finding that because of our
18-to-34 demographic and today through the Internet and the activity online,
we’re getting material back and forth [from all over the world]. Everyone is
tapping into each other’s online activities, which has made the world/universe
much smaller.”

He continued: “With our branding and everyone enjoying
comedy—everyone loves to laugh, everyone is waiting for the opportunity
to smile—we offer that, and my ability lately has been to launch
longstanding relationships to convince buyers to come onboard. And we’ve been
very successful in doing that.”

—By Kristin Brzoznowski