MGM promotes United Artists catalog
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Disney hosted its Magical Blu-ray Tour Oct. 26-28 at Roosevelt Field in Garden City, N.Y. Sponsored by Panasonic, the tour gave consumers information about the high-definition format.
To celebrate the Oct. 30 DVD release of Spider-Man 3, Sony executives participated in several promotional activities in New York’s Times Square on Oct. 29, including the NASDAQ closing bell ceremony.
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DVD gift set part of 18-month 90th anniversary celebration
By Ned Randolph -- Video Business, 10/29/2007
OCT. 29 | To promote the upcoming 90th anniversary of United Artists, parent MGM Home Entertainment is launching an 18-month catalog promotion with a $20 million media campaign, traveling festival and national sweepstakes.
Part of the celebration is a 90-title DVD gift set.
The promotion kicks off Thursday with the premier of Lions for Lambs, an MGM-UA film, directed by Robert Redford and starring Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise.
MGM said the 18-month promotion will be the largest catalog event in video industry history.
More than 50 UA films will be relaunched on DVD. Each disc will feature the American Film Institute logo with a custom inscription from AFI noting the film’s significance in American movie history.
Other extensive catalog releases will be backed by event-style publicity campaigns and marketing that will generate broad consumer awareness for UA’s DVD library.
MGM will premiere the most comprehensive collection of UA films ever to be released in a 90-title gift set, featuring The Apartment, In the Heat of the Night, Annie Hall, Rain Man, West Side Story and Midnight Cowboy—as well as franchise films Bond, Rocky and The Pink Panther.
A 30-title collection gift set also will debut on Dec. 11.
Additional single titles and gift-sets making their DVD debut in the next three months include:
• Rocky: the Complete Saga of all six Rocky films
• The James Bond Ultimate Collector’s Set of 21 Bond films available together for the first time
UA DVD titles to be released in 2008 include: event anniversaries for UA properties including In the Heat of the Night, Last Tango in Paris, Rain Man, La Cage aux Folles, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, WarGames and The Thomas Crown Affair, among others.
United Artists was formed in 1919 by Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith.
The new company was formed in November 2006 under a partnership between Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, an MGM company.
“We are very respectful of the United Artists tradition and look forward to continuing the studio’s rich creative legacy,” said Wagner, CEO of UA. “Lions for Lambs is the first of a wide range of films that will revitalize UA and enable the next generation of filmmakers to thrive and see their visions realized.”
Along with the $20 million marketing campaign for the anniversary, MGM will launch a dedicated Web site—www.unitedartists90.com—that will feature information about upcoming DVDs, theatrical releases and national and local events and promotions tied to the 90th anniversary campaign. The site will go live on Thursday.
“Our home entertainment group at 20th Century Fox saw this as an opportunity to bring back to the consumer consciousness the impact that this library has had on pop culture, entertainment and the artistry of filmmaking,” said Rick Sands, MGM chief operating officer.
A sweepstakes, “The Technology That Drives Hollywood,” will feature a grand trip to Hollywood to pitch a feature film concept to studio executives at United Artists, among other prizes.
The American Film Institute will work with UA on a series of film restoration projects, festivals and theatrical screenings for United Artists properties throughout the celebration.
The celebration also features cross-promotional spots with Panasonic and a “United Artists Film Festival” that will visit 20 cities and screen such titles as Dr. No, Rocky and Annie Hall.
