Fandango has acquired Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes, including the professional movie critic rating tool, the Tomatometer, from Warner Bros. Entertainment. The addition of Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes, along with Fandango’s recent acquisition of on-demand video service, M-Go, will expand the company’s theatrical ticketing business and create the industry’s premier digital network for all things movies.
Intertrust Technologies Corporation has added session-based video watermarking capabilities from Civolution’s NexGuard to its ExpressPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM) service. NexGuard watermarking technology allows copyright holders to identify the source of unauthorized distribution even after a movie leaves the encrypted digital domain of a DRM system. The accountability provided by NexGuard session-based watermarking has already proven effective in reducing the volume of video piracy, and will be a key aspect of content protection as the distribution of streaming video increases globally. ExpressPlay using Marlin DRM is currently the leading video DRM in rapidly growing markets such as China.
For the second year in a row, Aspera has been selected as an Official Supplier for the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, taking place February 11-21. As one of the most important events for the international film industry, Berlinale attracts more than 300,000 attendees from around the world, and showcases some 400 films of every genre, length and format on more than 60 different screens, totaling over 2500 screenings.
Cinegy has been invited to join ImmersiaTV, an EU consortium of university technology incubators, research institutes, and commercial entities collaborating to research and develop the future of home entertainment, including virtual and augmented reality.
The Berlin International Film Festival is entering a new era of projection, as Barco’s Flagship Laser projector will screen a selection of movies at this year’s festival. For this 66th edition, Barco set up a Flagship Laser DP4K-60L projector at the Friedrichstadt-Palast venue, Europe’s biggest show theater with1,895 seats. Here, the festival shows films from the competition and holds Berlinale Special Galas.
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has received a Special Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. AMPAS presented the Special Award plaque to SMPTE at the Academy's annual Scientific and Technical Awards presentation, which took place Februrary 13 in Beverly Hills, California.
Disney, Lionsgate, and Twentieth Century Fox will release four live-action and animated feature films for Dolby Cinema around the world. The first of the new titles will be Twentieth Century Fox’s Deadpool, in theatres February 12. Additional titles include Disney’s Zootopia, in theatres March 4; Lionsgate’s The Divergent Series: Allegiant, in theatres March 18; and Lionsgate’s Now You See Me 2, in theatres June 10.
On the occasion of the 66th Berlin International Film Festival the European Audiovisual Observatory has released its first estimates for European cinema attendance in 2015. The Observatory estimates that total admissions in the European Union increased by 7.6 percent to 980 million tickets sold, 69 million more than in 2014. This is the second highest level registered in the EU in the past ten years. Only in 2009 did cinemas in the EU sell more tickets boosted by Avatar and the novelty factor of 3D.
Ymagis today reported its consolidated revenue figures for the fourth quarter of 2015. For the quarter, the group’s revenue amounted to €51.6 million, an increase of 20.7 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2014. For the 2015 fiscal year, the company generated cumulated revenue of €157.7 million, an increase of 86.4 percent over the prior year period on a reported basis, and an increase of 4.8 percent over the 2014 fiscal year pro forma.
Funimation Films announced today that The Boy and The Beast, the newest Mamoru Hosoda film, will open March 4 in more than 100 theaters across the U.S. Theatergoers will have the option to watch either the original Japanese language version (with English subtitles), the new English dub version produced by Funimation, or both, depending on theater location.
