via press release:
Nickelodeon Acquires Global Rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Nickelodeon to Develop New CG-Animated Television Series and Paramount Pictures to Develop Feature Film of Renowned Global Property
NEW YORK, Oct 21, 2009 — Furthering its mission to provide premium content to its audiences, Nickelodeon–part of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B)–has acquired the global rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from The Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE). The acquisition provides Nickelodeon, the world’s number-one entertainment brand for kids, global intellectual property rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the hit television, film and video game property that has delighted kids around the world for the last 25 years. The aggregate purchase price for the transactions is approximately $60 million.
Nickelodeon also announced plans to develop a new CG-animated television series based on the popular superhero franchise, anticipated to premiere in 2012. Additionally, in partnership with Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, a new release of a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feature film is also planned for 2012. Nickelodeon has also acquired all merchandising rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and will continue to work with its original and long-standing toy partner, Playmates Toys, which has been the creative force behind the successful TMNT master toy program over the last two decades.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shares a comedic sensibility with the Nickelodeon DNA, with added layers of action and fantasy that have kept this property an evergreen favorite with multiple generations of audiences,” said Cyma Zarghami, President, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group. “We are extremely happy to have the opportunity to be able to focus on this property and creatively re-introduce it to a new generation of kids.”
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a property that maintains a very passionate global fan base, is rich with opportunity for a tentpole movie, and is exactly the right property for us to work together with Nickelodeon,” said Adam Goodman, President, Paramount Pictures.
“Mirage has been the proud keeper of the Turtles’ brand since 1984, and in 2009 we celebrated their 25th anniversary with our legions of fans,” said Gary Richardson, CEO, Mirage Studios. “Nickelodeon is a powerhouse global brand, and we are confident that the company will be a wonderful steward for Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello and all the other TMNT characters and take them in all kinds of exciting and new creative directions.”
“We enjoyed our eight-year partnership with Mirage during which 4Kids and Mirage re-launched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise for a new generation of kids around the world,” said Alfred Kahn, Chairman and CEO of 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. “We will also work with Mirage and Viacom so that our Turtles’ licensees can be assured of a seamless transition.”
Considered one of the most popular kids’ television programs of the 1980s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a classic, global property created in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It first debuted as a successful comic book series and then became a hit animated TV show, a live-action television series, and later spawned four blockbuster theatrical releases. The property also has translated into a significant consumer products business–with DVDs, video games, toys and more–that has generated billions of dollars at retail.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is based on four mutant turtles–trained in the art of Ninjitsu–who battle evil from the New York sewers. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated television series–jointly produced by 4Kids Entertainment and Mirage Studios–will continue to air on “TheCW4Kids” Saturday morning programming block on The CW network through Aug. 31, 2010.
About Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon, now in its 30th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books and feature films. Nickelodeon’s U.S. television network is seen in almost 100 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 15 consecutive years. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B).
About Mirage Studios
The Mirage Group is a group of companies, including Mirage Studios, Inc., located in Northampton, Massachusetts, that owned and managed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property from its creation in 1984 through 2009.
About 4Kids Entertainment
Master licensing agent for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE), is a global organization devoted to the creation, development, production, broadcasting, licensing and manufacturing of children’s entertainment products, with U.S. headquarters in New York City, regional offices for its trading card business in San Diego, California, and international offices in London and Hong Kong.
Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains both historical and forward-looking statements. All statements that are not statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the Company’s current expectations concerning future results, objectives, plans and goals, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among others: the worsening of current economic conditions generally, and in advertising and retail markets in particular; the public acceptance of the Company’s programs, motion pictures and games on the various platforms on which they are distributed; competition for audiences and distribution; technological developments and their effect in the Company’s markets and on consumer behavior; fluctuations in the Company’s results due to the timing, mix and availability of the Company’s motion pictures and games; changes in the Federal communications laws and regulations; the impact of piracy; other domestic and global economic, business, competitive and/or regulatory factors affecting the Company’s businesses generally; and other factors described in the Company’s news releases and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its 2008 Annual Report on Form 10-K and reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made only as of the date of this document, and the Company does not have any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
SOURCE Nickelodeon
http://www.nick.com
Must people do everything in CG these days. What is wrong with a good old fashioned animated cartoon. I hate the way those CG shows look.
I know what you mean but it sells and may ultimately become cheaper than cell animated cartoons.
You have to wonder whether this is any reaction to Disney’s purchase of Marvel. Is Nickelodeon trying to make sure they have enough superhero cartoons on their now Marvel-heavy Nicktoons division?
I wish they did more shows like they did Batman: The Animated Series in the 90’s. I’m snatching up as many shows like that as I can, so when I have kids, I could show them the amazing world before CG & anime took over.
And $60 million? That’s it? Seems low for a two decade-old show.
Bitey- You are half-right. It somewhat relates to the Marvel buy, but not for what youa re talking about. Disney has been scrambling to tap into the BOY market. With Marvel, and now Turtles, they are trying to build that up to reach them.
I wonder if this means ‘TMNT’ will be pulled from the CW4Kids Saturday morning line-up where it is currently running so that Nick can program it exclusively.
@ nkinsey — Nickelodeon is owned by MTV Networks, aka Viacom, in no way associated with Disney. Nick is trying to get a hold of something, as Warner brothers has a strangle hold on DC comics and Looney Toons and now Disney with Marvel and of course the Mouse and friends. Viacom is looking to capitalize on characters that can be used for new releases through multiple revenue streams.
Disney purchase of Marvel is a great buy because it brings a movie company, a comic print company, and don’t forget toys and all the other licensing that it brings. While Viacom’s buy of TMNT is a oddity of sorts as the show has been a tide like sensation. no doubt a new show/movie will be out shortly to make so new waves.
SGNJ- You are right. I had a brain fart for a minute on all of that. What I mean is that Nick is grabbing it to try and capitalize on the boy market. With the Marvel buy Disney is trying to grab that demo, so their competition needs to follow suit or lose it. If done right, this strengthens Nick’s hold on that demo.
George Lucas has no difficulty shopping anything he has to some channel somewhere, so he wouldn’t want a channel but Hasbro has virtually all the other popular boy brands, but wrapped up mainly in toys and then ancillary media came later. They were getting a network with Discovery but I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted a kids channel all to promote their properties as well.
It’s pretty much the fault of Disney/Nickelodeon why they have trouble capturing the male audience the way Cartoon Network has been doing…why not actually make shows that appeal to young males? Pretty much everything on Disney is a terrible sitcom targeted at females while Nickelodeon has been starting to do the same with their four hour blocks of iCarly…I think the shift towards young females has a lot to do with video games…boys playing the games will watch less cable television, meaning the kids networks are better off appealing to girls…
The digital networks Nicktoons and Disney XD claim to be targeted at boys with lots of action cartoons, but they’re about 1/3 the subscriber base of the main Nick and Disney cable channels. I agree about the billion hour blocks of iCarly. The action animation market seems to be locked into a very tiny number of channels now.
Nkinsey
Batman the Animated series was the best animated, executed and written cartoon ever in my opinion. I really wish they would release Batman the Animated series out n DVD’s that show an entire season instead of volumes. The current volume DVD’s don’t have all the show’s episodes and they are not in the order they were aired in.
The Complete Series has all of them (finally).
And as for being the best ever? How shall I say this….You are my new best TVBTN friend! I TOTALLY agree. It was beautifully written, presented, acted, never pandered to little kids (instead it was for all ages). Just nothing short of brilliant.
Tying the first and last post together, the original season of Batman: TAS frequently used black paper in the photography, instead of the typical use of white on the backgrounds. The lush images for the background art were simply breathtaking with the originality.
By the time of the Batman Beyond spinoff’s 3rd season it was so much cheaper and easier to use computers and never even use a background cel that the first series’ beauty was just a curious artifact of time. That art style was never used before, and is not cost effective for televised childrens’ cartoons ever to be used again. It had truly magnificent visuals that really could only exist at that one small moment.
@dumont – TMNT leaves the CW4Kids after August 31, 2010. Then apparently Nicktoons will be rerunning the newer series.
Nick doesn’t have the rights to the 80s cartoon yet – they still belong to Fred Wolf – but apparently they’re working on it.