Image Entertainment Buys Madacy Home Video

Ever feel as though your own Criterion DVD collection has been a little empty, missing a release of, say, The Three Stooges?

Well, your prayers may have just been answered.

According to reports, Image Entertainment, the home video distributor for The Criterion Collection, has just purchased Madacy Home Video, home to such legendary TV titles such as The Lucy Show, Bonanza and, you guessed it, The Three Stooges, as well as The John Wayne Collection, and Born To Run, an early Robert De Niro film from 1971, directed by Ivan Passer.

Now, as the home video distributor for the Criterion Collection, the obvious next question is, what would be a good fit in the collection? While Image and Criterion are two separate entities, it is interesting to think about how one affects the other. Just because Image now has access to these titles, doesn’t mean that Criterion can pick whatever they want from them. But since they’re friends, who knows.

Personally, it’s too hard to truly tell.   Best known for releasing massive collections focused on one actor, genre, or theme, there aren’t many single releases that the company has distributed.   However, they do have a collection of films, nine to be exact, starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas or James Cagney, all of which could be a perfect fit for the Collection.   Maybe a TV box set similar to The Golden Age Of Television featuring some of their older TV backlog, as it would be quite a different release for the Collection.

With the recent news that Image will be distributing all of Sony’s DVDs and Blu-rays for the next few years, along with this announcement, it sounds like the folks at Image are doing just fine.

What would you like to see get released out of this deal? A new Cagney release? John Wayne film?

Source: Business Wire

From the press release:

Image Entertainment Purchases Madacy Home Video

Extensive Special Interest DVD Collections Find New Home at Image

CHATSWORTH, Calif., Oct 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) —

Image Entertainment, Inc. (OTCQB: DISK) announced today it has purchased Madacy Home Video, a division of Madacy Entertainment, one of North America’s leading independent distributors of audio and video entertainment products. The multi-million dollar deal includes rights to the video library and the trade name Madacy Home Video. The library includes classic television, horror, theatrical as well as numerous special interest titles. Under the transaction, Madacy Entertainment has retained a thirty percent interest in the video division. Image Entertainment will acquire this final minority interest on or before August 31, 2014. The agreement was announced today by Ted Green, Image Entertainment’s Chairman and CEO.

“Madacy has the rights to several gems from classic Hollywood as well as recently produced documentaries and special interest properties that will fit well within the Image family,” stated Green. “This acquisition allows us to expand our library quickly while affording us properties to leverage across several platforms.”

“We believe that the combination of Madacy’s value-based special interest product line with Image’s extensive marketing and distribution channels makes this a perfect combination of our two businesses,” said Mr. Harris Sterling, EVP – Strategic Marketing for Madacy Entertainment. “In addition, we believe there are numerous opportunities to exploit Image’s extensive video back catalogue through our value-based marketing approach. Madacy will continue to contribute to the creative process in the development of new releases.”

Madacy distributed over 100 titles including Lucille Ball’s The Lucy Show, Bonanza and The Beverly Hillbillies. Also included is The John Wayne Collection, Hell in the Pacific and the documentaries Our Planet Earth, World War II Battlefront and NASA – The Complete History.