New Digital Entertainment Arm for MarVista

LOS ANGELES: MarVista Entertainment has created a new division to license original and acquired content to digital platforms across North America, beginning with the Disney Channel original movie Zapped.

MarVista Digital Entertainment (MVDE) will provide curated monthly program slates, offering at least two new release titles and three catalogue titles. It is scheduled to kick off on August 1 with the release of Zapped, a teen comedy movie starring Zendaya that premiered on Disney Channel and iTunes last week. Other digital releases lined up for August include the dramatic thriller Fatal Acquittal; the family comedy If I Had Wings; and the crime thriller Betrayed. In addition, one new release music special/doc—featuring such musicians as Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber—will launch per quarter.

MVDE will be led by Vanessa Shapiro, the executive VP of distribution, who will expand the penetration and audience reach of MarVista's programming. Scott Kirkpatrick, previously the director of sales, is becoming the division's director of distribution. Rebecca Shipley has come on board as MVDE's manager of digital distribution. In that role, she will oversee MarVista's digital content catalogue and promotion strategies, among other duties. Prior to this appointment, Shipley handled programming and acquisitions for Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.

"Over the past several years we have amassed a significant catalogue of over 2,000 hours of top-notch content, and our strategic plan for the future is to accelerate our level of investment in original and acquired content," said Fernando Szew, the CEO of MarVista Entertainment. "At this juncture, the timing is right for MarVista to capitalize on opportunities in the digital space by creating an in-house division to proactively build relationships with the established and emerging digital platforms across North America, and to do this, we have made a sizeable investment in our operations and human resources."