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UPDATED: Twilight producer Summit Entertainment has signed an exclusive five-year output deal with HBO. It will cover the mini-major’s movies released from January 2013 through the end of 2017. It will start when Summit’s current output deal with Showtime ends. Summit’s four-year pact with Showtime, which features up to 42 titles released from 2008 through 2012, including the blockbuster Twilight Saga and Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, was signed in December 2008. (Showtime will continue to run Summit movies through 2014.) It came shortly after the pay cable network lost its main movie suppliers — Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate — who went on to launch their own service, EPIX, and was designed to infuse fresh theatricals into Showtime’s lineup. While the network has been focusing on original programming for the past few years, successfully growing its series stable, theatrical movies are considered an important piece of the mix for pay cable channels. Summit’s departure leaves DreamWorks and The Weinstein Co. as Showtime’s biggest movie partners. (The network has the rights to Disney-distributed DreamWorks releases from 2010-15.) Showtime also has deals with Miramax and CBS corporate sibling CBS Films. I hear Summit brass felt their movies would be better suited for HBO where Summit will join the network’s sibling Warner Bros. as well as Fox, Universal and DreamWorks Animation, which have output deals there. Here is the release:
Los Angeles, CA May 26, 2011 — Summit Entertainment and HBO have entered into an exclusive output agreement through which the leading pay television network will release the studio’s slate of films that arrive in theaters beginning in January 2013 through the end of 2017. The agreement makes Summit the only minimajor to maintain an exclusive output arrangement with HBO. The announcement was made today by Bruce Grivetti, President, Film Programming of HBO, and Rob Friedman, Co-Chairman and CEO of Summit Entertainment.
“We are extremely happy to have Summit Entertainment as our newest partner,” said Grivetti. “HBO is committed to delivering the best filmed entertainment to our subscribers and we believe Summit, an innovative and exciting producer, will play a vital role in the fulfillment of this promise.”
“We are proud to be in business with HBO and have our films programmed alongside many of the industry’s leading studios,” said Friedman. “HBO continues to consistently produce quality original programming mixed with exciting sports and feature film programming and we look forward to a very productive relationship.”
Summit Entertainment films expected to appear on HBO include the studio’s re-imagination of the popular epic adventure HIGHLANDER, ENDER’S GAME based on the award-winning novel written by Orson Scott Card; and epic 3D production POMPEII.
Summit Entertainment’s President of Domestic Television Distribution Alex Fragen and HBO’s Senior Vice President of Film Programming Doris Casap represented the studio and network in negotiations.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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The deal with Weinstein is up in 2013 (I think) at which time, they will likely move to Starz, as they now own something like 30% in the company. That means that come 2014, the pickings will be really slim for Showtime.
Showtime will still have a deal in place for Dreamworks Pictures’ output, plus CBS Films. It’s just not as impressive as Summit’s deal was. Showtime should be thankful they snagged the exclusive cable rights to all five Twilight films when they signed that 4 year deal.
They’re still the only ones without a deal with a major studio.
Universal’s HBO is the one that expires next if I’m not mistaken so if I were Les, I’d step it up and stop relying on indie movies not many people have seen. Shows are part of the equation, not *the* equation plus they need material for TMC and Flix which only plays movies.
HBO – Warner Bros., Summit, Universal, Dreamworks Animation, Fox
Starz – Sony, Disney, TWC, Anchor Bay
Epix – Paramount, Lionsgate, MGM
Showtime – Dreamworks and CBS Films
Not sure all the Original Programming in the world is going to bridge that content gap.
Yeah, apparently Les Moonves forgot that he also owns The *Movie* Channel and *Flix*. If he doesn’t care at all, he might as well just eliminate those networks since he foolishly (IMO) sees no point in having hit movies on his network.
okay, I love Summit. They are totes the new model for studios. Self sufficient, energetic, go get em attitudes all around. I had coffee with Sophie Cassidy and not only is she sweet, she’s ambitious and wicked smart! I don’t know if she remembers me (Jinny, we went to Norm’s) but she is a great model for the “new exec”! Go Summit!
Considering that the pickings will soon become very slim for Showtime, with HBO, Starz and Epix getting the lion’s share of new film releases, it might not be a bad idea for Showtime’s execs to start shifting the emphasis away from airing theatrical films and concentrate more on the creation and nurturing of more new original TV series, including picking up some of the TV shows from the major commercial networks which fall into the “brilliant, but canceled too soon” category.
This could be one way Showtime could differentiate itself from HBO, Starz and EPIX, by emphasizing that they air original programming that the other pay-cable networks don’t have, or won’t touch.
This is a big get for both Summit and HBO. Though I find it odd that HBO went for the Summit package when they turned down the Disney/DreamWorks flicks because they didn’t have the space for them.
Why didn’t Starz bite?
Wow I met with the execs?
That creation of Epix is starting to bite Moonves in the ass now. Summer Redstone must be laughing his ass off now. All the other big studios have long contracts. If I’m not mistaken, Universal’s is the closest to expire and that’s like 4 or 5 years and you can forget about WB and NLC because of it’s ties to HBO’s Time Warner.
Plus, CBS, Weinstein and Dreamworks live action movies aren’t released as much each year compared to other studios plus Miramax hasn’t released anything in a year.
Hell, even their older movie selection sucks. All they play are old Disney/Touchstone movies.
Will Showtime air Miramax movies distributed by other companies (Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, The Debt, Last Night etc.)?
I have no clue. Same goes for Insidious and Soul Surfer regarding Sony and Starz since Film District is with Netflix. Focus has The Debt which means it’s going to HBO and I have no clue where Tribeca goes with Last Night.
Then again, Paramount distributed many Dreamworks movies yet HBO still got them isntead of shifting to Showtime or Epix.
I really like a lot of Showtime’s original series (Nurse Jackie, The Big C, Homeland, Episodes, Shameless) but they do need to do something about their movie situation. It’s actually gotten a bit better here lately it seems, mostly due to DreamWorks films coming on board (The Help and Fright Night both premiere on Showtime in June).
Their 7-year deal with Weinstein Co./Dimension, which produces some of Hollywood’s best films (The Artist, The Iron Lady, My Week with Marilyn), includes that studio’s output until the end of 2015 I believe–although muddying the picture is Weinstein’s recent deal with Netflix that will give them (not Showtime) debut rights to some of their content, including The Artist, W/E, Coriolanus, plus foreign-language and documentary films. So I’m not sure if that content only ever runs on Netflix or will also run on Showtime after some multi-month time window on Netflix.
At any rate, Showtime really does need to line up another contract with a major distributor ASAP. They should also think about getting back into doing a few original films/mini-series each year, like HBO. Showtime has generated a lot of buzz with their original series lately but it simply isn’t enough content to fill their schedule without having to rely on some pretty crappy movies here and there (including some straight-to-video stuff).