Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the niche movie studio that just bought "Twilight" maker Summit Entertainment, said Thursday that it had agreed to license more than 500 movies to premium pay TV channel provider Starz Entertainment, once they have finished their run on its joint-venture pay movie channel, Epix.
The deal includes such recent films as "The Expendables," "The Last Exorcism" and "Conan The Barbarian." Because the deal is for the so-called "library" period, Starz is not likely to get hold of the movies until about 9 or 10 years after they first appeared in theaters.
Lions Gate is a partial owner of the Epix premium pay TV channel with Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. As such Lions Gate's movies will appear on Epix about 10 months after their release in theaters.
The deal does not change the traditional pay TV windows, during which channels like Starz and HBO have exclusive rights to movies. But the scale of the deal is large, runs for more than a decade and is the first long-term library deal between the two companies.
Starz is a wholly owned subsidiary of John Malone's Liberty Media Corp.
Liberty shares closed down 5 cents at $83.59 while Lions Gate shares fell 11 cents, or 1 percent, to close at $10.37 on Thursday.