TV4, Svensk Filmindustri Ink Three-Year Movie Deal

STOCKHOLM, December 19: Swedish network TV4 has reached an
exclusive three-year agreement with Svensk Filmindustri (SF) for the free-TV
rights to a large number of feature films.

The agreement covers the 2008-2010 period, with the majority
of the films being new releases that will screen in Swedish movie theaters over
the next three years. The agreement also includes a number of library films
from SF’s Scandinavian catalogue.

Titles included under the deal are next year’s new movies Sex
and the City (with Sarah Jessica Parker,
Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis), He’s Just Not That
Into You (Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett
Johansson, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Connelly), 27 Dresses (Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Malin Åkerman), Love
Guru (Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Mike
Myers), Burn After Reading (Brad
Pitt, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton) and Four
Christmases (Reese Witherspoon, Vince
Vaughn).

The new agreement builds on TV4’s previous deal with SF for
older Swedish films from the SF catalogue. TV4 and SF are also cooperating on
the film project, Arn—The Knight Templar, based on the successful novels by Jan Guillou. The two feature films
and six-episode TV series will air on TV4 in 2008 and 2009. The first feature
film will hit Swedish theatres on December 25.

Clara Scherman, the head of acquisitions at TV4, commented:
“With this deal, we and SF will further strengthen our partnership, but in the
end, it is our viewers that will benefit from the agreement. We are very
pleased with being able to offer our viewers a huge range of high-quality films
on TV4 over the next three years.”

“We are very excited to be able to offer, together with TV4,
so many films to such a wide audience over the next few years,” said SF’s
Robert Enmark. “I am also thrilled that we could include local films from
Denmark, Norway and Finland in the deal, giving them a large exposure on a
Swedish TV channel.”

—By Kristin Brzoznowski