MPI pacts with Music Box Films
INDIE FILM GUIDE: Deal to include French hit Tell No One
By Cindy Spielvogel -- Video Business, 10/27/2008
OCT. 27 | INDIE FILM GUIDE: One of the most anticipated independent films scheduled for DVD release in the first quarter of 2009 will arrive through a deal between two Chicago-based companies.
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The thriller about a man who receives an e-mail from his long-deceased wife will be released on DVD as well as Blu-ray Disc.
“We had other offers, but at the end of the day, we felt that MPI would do as good a job, if not better,” says Ed Arentz, managing director of Music Box. “There would be a transparency that we wouldn’t have with a studio deal.”
The deal calls for MPI to distribute not only Tell No One, but all Music Box films. The first, the French spy spoof OSS 117, was released on DVD in September, to be followed Oct. 28 by the Chinese romance Tuya’s Marriage.
Arentz, a veteran of Empire Pictures and Palm Pictures who runs the Cinema Village theater in Lower Manhattan, N.Y., formed Music Box about a year and a half ago with Bill Schopf, whose Music Box Theatre is in Chicago. They plan to release about four to six films per year, all going to DVD through MPI.
“We’ve survived and thrived over 35 years,” says Greg Newman, VP of acquisitions and development for MPI, in explaining why his company proved to be an attractive home for Music Box.
The Music Box deal is one of several relatively recent independent film efforts from MPI. The company also created Dark Sky Films for the horror genre and the Dokument Films label.
Newman looks at MPI’s location outside the main film cities of New York and Los Angeles as an advantage, because the company can hum along without being affected by tough times in the major hubs. “We’ve been able to stay lean, and we’re doing quite well,” he says.
