Mike Fleming

Preferred Ventures and Might Entertainment have acquired the ancillary rights to the Kino Lorber film library. The fund will exploit the rights of more than 700 past titles plus 36 more titles over the next three years on cable VOD, IPTV, satellite and broadband outlets that will include iTunes, Xbox and PlayStation. Preferred Ventures, a newly established digital investment fund formed by Kevin Iwashina and Ross Dinerstein’s Preferred Content, Freecreditreport.com founder Ed Ojdana and ex-Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, paid in the six figures for those ancillary rights. Kino Lorber has separate deals with digital vendors that include Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, Fandor and Epix. Preferred Ventures’ Iwashina made the deal with Might Entertainment president Andy Bohn and Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber.

Might and Kino Lorber partnered on the VOD releases Winnebago Man and Mademoiselle Chambon, and they have six films scheduled for release over the next few months. Those titles include the French kidnapping thriller Rapt, the crime drama The Robber, the Romanian drama Tuesday, After Christmas, Giorgio Moroder’s Metropolis, and the documentary El Bulli. This will probably not be the last film library to make niche deals to further exploit its library in areas that hadn’t previously brought much revenue. As evidenced by The Weinstein Company’s formation of a VOD label, film companies are finding more and more ways to realize revenue from film library assets.

“As we look to expand the audience for independent film on emerging platforms, we could not ask for a better partner than Kino Lorber,” said Might president Bohn. Said Lorber: “With the digital landscape rapidly changing, we are confident that Andy’s resourceful new venture will increase our penetration in high value areas like cable VOD, while expanding our digital reach to new channels and though new strategies.”