Press Releases

LOS ANGELES, CA (May 16th, 2012) - Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) has acquired multiple international territories from IM Global for Automatik's hot property ENDS OF THE EARTH, it was announced today by IM Global's CEO Stuart Ford. IM Global is a partner in Automatik with Alliance Films, which holds rights to the film in Canada, the U.K. and Spain.

The territories acquired by SPWA include German-speaking Europe, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Italy, Australia/New Zealand, Latin America and South Africa.

The deal was negotiated on behalf of SPWA by Michael Helfand, Executive Vice President of Business Affairs, and Joe Matukewicz, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions. Jonathan Deckter, IM Global's President of International Sales and Distribution, represented his company.

Earlier in the week it was announced that CBS Films had won a bidding war among U.S. distributors for the film, which will release stateside in early 2013.

Automatik, the production and film financing joint venture backed by Alliance Films and IM Global, acquired worldwide rights to ENDS OF THE EARTH after seeing a promo circulated by the filmmakers' reps at Verve.

ENDS OF THE EARTH is a found footage feature that blurs the lines between documentary and a narrative action film as the audience is treated to an authentic and horrifying thriller shot all around Europe. The film is co-directed by Derek Lee and Clif Prowse, produced by Chris Ferguson and Zach Lipovsky, executive produced by Stuart Ford, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Charles Layton, and backed by Telefilm Canada.

About Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) is a Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) company. SPE is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE's global operations encompass motion picture production and distribution; television production and distribution; digital content creation and distribution; worldwide channel investments; home entertainment acquisition and distribution, operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services and technologies; and distribution of filmed entertainment in more than 140 countries. Sony Pictures Entertainment can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.sonypictures.com.

About AUTOMATIK:
Automatik is a thriving strategic production joint venture backed by leading Canadian entertainment company Alliance Films and Stuart Ford's IM Global. Since its inception in mid-2010 Automatik has spawned the $100 million global box office hit "Insidious" and currently has four features in post-production. The company enjoys a distribution output agreement with Alliance on its own productions in Canada, the U.K. and Spain.

About IM GLOBAL
Stuart Ford founded IM Global in 2007. The company is one of the leading film financing, sales and distribution companies in the world, championing a wide variety of cinema, including mainstream commercial, art house, foreign language and genre fare. The company is now comprised of six divisions: IM Global Opus, for mainstream, commercial cinema; IM Global Acclaim, for critically acclaimed arthouse and specialty cinema; IM Global Anthem, for the best of non-English language cinema from around the world; IM Global Octane, for branded genre fare; IM Global Apsara, a rights acquisition and distribution vehicle that serves the rapidly evolving Asian markets across growing theatrical, digital and VOD distribution platforms; and Automatik Entertainment, a production and financing joint venture with Alliance Films focused on films in the $5 million - $15 million range. In May 2010, Reliance Entertainment, part of Indian conglomerate Reliance ADA Group, acquired a majority shareholding in the company.‪

About ALLIANCE FILMS
Alliance Films, Inc. is one of the top five independent filmed entertainment companies in the world. A leading multinational distributor, co-financier and producer of filmed entertainment, its member companies, Alliance Films and Alliance Vivafilm (Canada); Momentum Pictures (UK) and Aurum Producciones (Spain), offer integrated delivery of content in all media.

Strategic partnerships include exclusive distribution rights to films from Relativity Media in Canada and the UK and Summit in Spain; Focus Features, Lionsgate, The Weinstein Company, and CBS Films in Canada; as well as ongoing relationships with FilmNation Entertainment, Exclusive Media, IM Global, Lionsgate International, Wild Bunch, Constantin Films, EuropaCorp and Nu Image in all three territories.

Key production alliances include: a co-production and acquisitions deal with Italy's Medusa Film; a first-look deal with Iain Canning and Emile Sherman's See-Saw Films which produced the multiple Academy Award® winner "The King's Speech" and Steve McQueen's "Shame"; a joint venture with IM Global in the Automatik production company; and a deal with "Paranormal Activity" producer Jason Blum that has generated the box office hit "Insidious" from director James Wan, "The Bay" from filmmaker Barry Levinson, Rob Zombie's "Lords of Salem", Scott Derricksons' "Sinister" and Jay Shandrasekhar's "The Babymakers"; and also, a co-production deal with Exclusive Media, Cross Creek and Hammer, for James Watkins' "The Woman in Black".

Current and upcoming films where Alliance Films has an equity position or otherwise enabled projects to be financed include: "Safe", "Antiviral", "The Woman in Black 2", "Insidious 2" and "The Enemy".

Contacts:

Staci Griesbach
310.244.6903
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions
Staci_Griesbach@spe.sony.com

Bonnie Voland
+33.(0)4.92.99.32.42
IM Global
Bonnie_Voland@imglobalfilm.com