Entertainment Rights (ER) has signed a deal to make HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE the first-ever classic animated series to be released in Universal Media Disc (UMD) format in the U.S. This follows ERs agreement with U.S. HE-MAN DVD partner, BCI Eclipse (a Navarre Corp. Co.) for the U.S. PlayStation Portable (PSP) rights to HE-MAN. The first two HE-MAN titles will be released on UMD video in August 2005.
UMD and PSP technology allows owners to play games, watch movies and listen to music on a handheld device. Initial PSP/UMD movie releases have each sold in excess of 100,000 copies in the U.S.
Recently ER gained access to the important North American home entertainment market, through an agreement with BCI to act as HE-MANS DVD partner in the US and Canada, giving ER mass DVD penetration allows ER entry to a potential market of nearly 100 million homes. The first He-Man DVD title, THE BEST OF HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE was released in the U.S. on July 12.
We are delighted to extend our partnership with BCI to include the PSP rights to HE-MAN, said Jane Smith, ER group commercial director. This deal demonstrates the true value of household characters and brands and how they can be applied to virtually any new media. We have only just begun to unlock the potential of the Filmation library and new developments in technology such as the PSP player provide us with numerous opportunities to make classic brands like He-Man relevant to todays children.
London-based Entertainment Rights (www.entertainmentrights.com) is one of the U.K.'s leading specialist media groups focused on the ownership of high quality children's and family programming, characters and brands. ER owns the rights to many classic characters including Basil Brush, Postman Pat, Little Red Tractor, He Man and Masters of the Universe, Fat Albert, She Ra, Ghostbusters, Zorro and The Lone Ranger. ER's library has grown to more than 1,800 hours of children's and family programming. This includes rights to global brands such as Mattel's Barbie, Scholastic's Clifford, Hasbro's Transformers, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Felix the Cat. ER is ideally placed to extend and exploit its portfolio of quality programming with its own television distribution, licensing division and an established home entertainment label, Right Entertainment.
