There’s a lot of buzz around classic film scores right now – as rumors swirl that Warner Bros. Discovery is set to strike a $500 million deal to sell around 50% of its prized music catalog. sony East reported be the first to buy.
But that’s not the only big music deal going on in Tinseltown.
Multimedia Music, the UK-based company founded by industry veterans Phil Hope and James Gibb has just announced its latest major acquisition.
The company has entered into an agreement for a 50% stake in a music copyright and publishing catalog of Amblin Partners, the company founded by Steven Spielberg and best known for its film and television production houses, Amblin Entertainment and Amblin Television.
The transaction, for an undisclosed amount, includes the music rights to numerous films, including 1917, The BFG, bridge of spies, Thank you for your service And The girl on the trainamong many others.
The catalog includes works by some of the most prominent film and television composers of recent decades, including John Williams, Thomas Newman, Danny Elfman, Alexandre Desplat, Mark Isha and Rob Simonsen.
The partnership between Amblin and Multimedia will also see the two companies collaborate on new initiatives to maximize catalog revenue collection and find new uses for music in TV shows, commercials and trailers.
“By combining Amblin’s unparalleled creative content with our ability to maximize media music revenue, we are confident that together we can create significant additional value both for our partnership and for the composers whose incredible work forms the catalog,” Hope and Gibb said in a joint statement.
Amblin Partners was formed in 2015 as the successor to the live-action division of Dreamworks SKG, which was originally formed by Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Led by Spielberg, the company produces movies under the Amblin Entertainment and Dreamworks banners, and television shows under the Amblin Television banner.
Its investment partners include Reliance Group’s Reliance Entertainment, Hasbro’s Entertainment One (eOne), Ali Baba Pictures and Universal Pictures.
Since its creation at the end of 2021, Multimedia Music has raised $200 million in two financing rounds from Metropolitan Partners Group, Bardin Hill, Pinnacle Bank and Regions Bank.
It is first acquisition was the catalog of all musical revenue and copyrights held by film composer James Newton Howard, whose work includes the scores of the fantastic beasts movies, the hunger games trilogy, The black Knight, Raya and the last dragon, bride on the run, Emily in Paris And A pretty woman. The films in this catalog have earned more than $15 billion At the box office.
Multimedia Music then completed a “seven-figure transaction” for the catalog of Atlantic Screen Music, which included scores for films such as Lone Survivor, The Host, Dredd, Escape Plan and Broken City.
In February of this year, Multimedia struck an eight-figure deal for music master and publishing rights to the entire STX Entertainment catalog. This gave Multimedia the music rights to film titles such as bad moms, Gentlemen And den of thievesamong others, and included works by composers such as Hans Zimmer, Cliff Martinez, Chris Lennertz and Clinton Shorter.
At the time, Multimedia Music stated that it had already deployed some $120 million on acquisitions.
“By combining Amblin’s unrivaled creative content with our ability to maximize media music revenue, we are confident that together we can create significant additional value both for our partnership and for the composers whose incredible work makes up the catalog.”
Phil Hope and James Gibb, multimedia music
In April, the company secured another eight-figure deal, this time for the catalog and revenue streams of composer Trevor Morris, best known for his work on The Tudors, The Borgias, vikings, big sky and the hit TV show Taken.
Additionally, Multimedia Music has also acquired the rights to the music of composers such as Tyler Bates (the John Wick series, Atomic Blonde), David Buckley (Jason Bourne, Butterfly, The sand man), Michel Corcoran (iCarly, Victorious) and Sean Callery (Star Trek: Generations, 24, Bone).
Multimedia Music isn’t the only company making major music rights acquisitions for film and TV these days.
So far this year has seen Cutting Edge Media Music (CEMM) form a strategic business with Village Roadshow Entertainment Group (VREG), under an agreement that covers all of VREG’s past and future music publishing assets, soundtrack album releases and music supervision services.
CEMM also acquired a “substantial catalog of film music” from UK-based First Score Music Ltd., which included full mastering and publishing rights to over 75 “premium” films, how sources told MBW was a high seven-figure deal.The music industry around the world
