This afternoon trade journal
Home Media Magazine posted
a report that Vivendi Entertainment "
acquired the home entertainment distribution rights to new releases and catalog fare" - including numerous TV-on-DVD titles - previously held by Genius Products (a.k.a. Genius Entertainment). Vivendi, best known as the retail channel distributor of independent DVD studios such as Shout! Factory, Eagle Rock/Eagle Vision, and others, is a part of the Universal Media Group.
Genius (which was formerly owned in part by The Weinstein Company) is known in recent years for retail distribution of products from a number of companies: Classic Media and their owners at Entertainment Rights, which are behind home video releases of
The Lone Ranger, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Archie, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Underdog and more. RHI Entertainment brought us DVDs for
The Little Rascals, The Secret World of Alex Mack and mini-series events such as
Meteor, The Last Templar, Tin Man, Lonesome Dove, Hogfather and
The Color of Magic. Then of course there's the entire line of Sesame Workshop/
Sesame Street videos, including everything "Elmo" and much more...such as the upcoming November 10th release of
Sesame Street - 40 Years of Sunny Days to celebrate the *exact* (to the day) 40-year anniversary of the show's debut.
According to today's report by
Home Media Magazine, rights to home video product from all of these studios, and more, will go to Vivendi as part of the new deal. A quote from the article says the agreement "
would mushroom VE’s catalog offering to more than 3,000 titles, with annual new releases on DVD and Blu-ray projected to top about 250 titles." Additionally, selected staff from Genius will move their employment to Vivendi. Although this news would, on the face of it, seem to put an end to Genius Products, the trade journal's report relays that "
Genius said it would continue operations and has entered into a long-term distribution deal with (Vivendi)
, which the distributor said it hopes to parlay into focusing on alternative entertainment brands such as toys, electronics and graphic novels."
Stay tuned, and we'll keep an eye on this new situation, and bring you reports of individual product announcements which may come out of it!
