Rubbish news: Hasbro decides to stop its Entertainment One subsidiary from releasing further films into UK cinemas.
Since Hasbro acquired Entertainment One a few years ago, there’s been a question mark over the future of one of the UK’s most prolific distributors of feature films into cinemas. The breadth of films put out by EOne including many that simply wouldn’t have had a theatrical outing otherwise: Midnight Special, The Edge Of Seventeen, A Monster Calls, 20th Century Women… there are dozens of titles, and on the occasions I visited the company’s London HQ, I was taken aback by the range of titles adorning its walls.
Here comes the crappy news then: Hasbro – after letting EOne release The Fabelmans and Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves this year – is shutting down Entertainment One’s UK film distribution operation.
Staff at the UK office will be losing their jobs, although the company will be keeping its British television and home entertainment releases just for the minute, but it feels like it’s a matter of time before that changes. Lionsgate is reportedly interested in picking up some of the film operations of the broader company that Hasbro isn’t looking to keep on.
No nice way to spin this, sadly. As ever, our hope is that the staff affected land on their feet as quickly as possible.
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