(Cannes, France) Hannover House, Inc. (OTC: HHSE) and its
affiliated companies Medallion Releasing, Inc. and VODWIZ, Inc. scored a record
bounty of new title acquisitions for the North American market at the recently
concluded Cannes Film Festival and Marche du Film in France. For the company’s rapidly expanding slate of
high-end theatrical titles, Hannover House acquired four new features for 2015,
the first of which will be formally announced today in a free-standing press
release. For the home video packaged
goods activities (DVD and BluRay distribution) a total of thirty-five new titles
were licensed; and for the growing Video-On-Demand library under the VODWIZ
streaming channel, 408 new titles from a total of 8 new supplier studios were
brought on board.
“The response from
distributors, sales agencies and licensors far exceeded our most optimistic
projections,” said Fred Shefte, President.
“Our goal was to promote the forthcoming launch of the VODWIZ portal to international
rights owners. While that goal was achieved and exceeded, we also ended up
licensing a record number of highly commercial titles for home video and
theatrical. With out a doubt, the Cannes
market this year has generated the greatest results in the company’s 21-year
history at any and all film markets,” he concluded.
The Hannover House
theatrical schedule for 2015 includes four previously announced titles and four
additional, unannounced titles for Q3 and Q4.
However, the new Cannes acquisitions will add four more new titles into
the 2015 schedule, including at least one title for wide theatrical
release. For the home video schedule, 35
new titles acquired for Hannover House and Medallion will be incorporated into
the company’s existing video release schedule, with a majority of the Cannes direct-to-video
titles expected for actual on-sale release during Q1 of 2016. The 400+ new titles that were acquired for
VODWIZ are already in the process of on-boarding / uploading to the streaming-portal’s
massive film library, with at least 100 of them expected for the on-line
initial launch of the consumer site later this summer. At present, the VODWIZ website and portal
exists solely as a placeholder site, with only 60 titles posted on-line and
limited consumer awareness. The activation
of the mirror-consumer site for VODWIZ will occur within the next few weeks,
and is expected to have more than 500 titles immediately “live” for consumers
to stream. By the end of 2015, VODWIZ
hopes to have more than 2,500 titles from a total of more than 18 supplier
studios on-line for viewing. In total,
with the newly licensed titles from Cannes, the VODWIZ venture now has access
to over 3,300 titles. Five additional
suppliers, collectively controlling the streaming rights to more than 4,000 additional
feature films or television programs, have expressed interest in joining the
VODWIZ supplier community, but are waiting for the consumer site to be
activated first. The VODWIZ portal is
being described as “the Netflix of Independent Studios” although several major
studios are in talks to place programming onto the streaming site.
In accordance with the
licensors of the higher-end theatrical titles acquired at Cannes, each of these
features will be announced through stand-alone press releases, the first of
which is slated for the week of June 15 - 19.
Key theatre chains in
the United States and Canada that exhibit feature films from Hannover House include
(listed alphabetically): AMC Theatres, Bow
Tie Cinemas, Carmike, Cinemark-Century, Cineplex-Odeon, Harkins, Malco, Marcus,
Metropolitan, National Amusements, Pacific Theatres, Regal Entertainment Group,
Santikos and Wehrenberg Theatres,
Key mass merchants
and home video purchasers of products from Hannover House and Medallion
Releasing include (listed alphabetically):
AAFES, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Eurpac, Family Video, Hastings, Netflix,
Redbox, Target Stores and Walmart-Sams Clubs.
Hannover House, Inc.
was formed in1993 as a book publisher, and expanded into films and DVD in
2002. The Company has grown into an
internationally recognized publishing brand and film distribution house, with
successful release activities into the theatrical, home video, television,
streaming and international markets, along with its ongoing activities in book
publishing.
SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT
This press release may
contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Sections 27A
& 21E of the amended Securities and Exchange Acts of 1933-34, which are
intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Although the
company believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements
contained herein are reasonable, there can be no assurance that these
statements included in this press release will prove accurate.
UPDATE: 6:00 PM Central Time (Friday, June 12) - The producers of a major theatrical film that we licensed at Cannes and slated for press announcement TODAY (per above) requested that we hold the announcement until MONDAY due to their waiting for approval (on some wording) from a cross-promotional partner in the film. Instead, we will release TOMORROW (Saturday) news of a much smaller (but still "theatrical") title for HHSE / MEDALLION that was acquired at Cannes!
