OWN Picks Up Precious

LOS ANGELES: OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network has acquired the television rights to the Academy Award-nominated film Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire from Lionsgate.

OWN has licensed the first broadcast window behind pay TV beginning summer 2012. Precious has garnered more than $45 million at the North American box office, and is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film has already won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress (Mo’Nique) along with the Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award for the film (Lee Daniels, Gary Magness and Sarah Siegel-Magness), a Directors Guild nomination for Lee Daniels as Best Director and a Writers Guild nomination for Geoffrey Fletcher (Best Adapted Screenplay).

"Precious is the perfect film for OWN," said Christina Norman, the CEO of OWN. "It’s a powerful film of self-discovery and empowerment, and I know it will resonate deeply with our audience."

"OWN’s licensing of Precious epitomizes our strategy of supplying quality content to cable networks hungry for fresh programming to build their brands and serve their target audiences," said Kevin Beggs, the president of programming and production at Lionsgate. "We are pleased to be in business with OWN, and we are very proud of Precious and confident that, as its commercial success and critical recognition continue to grow, it will become an icon of our culture."