Ion Television Kicks Off With Warner Bros Films

ION Television has just finished a multi-year film acquisition agreement with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. The deal will allow ION Television to air 27 films this fall and finishing summer 2010. At 8pm, Ion will air the first film “Grumpier Old Men” followed by The Fugitive, GoodFellas, Heat, City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan and all three Lethal Weapon films. Here’s the press release from Ion Television.

West Palm Beach, Fla. – September 22, 2008) – ION Television, the “Positively Entertaining” general entertainment network reaching over 94 million homes, has inked a multi-year film acquisition deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. Extending from fall 2008 through summer 2010, this multi-year deal brings 27 critically acclaimed and Academy Award-winning films to the network’s film slate.

“Our deal with Warner Bros. is part of our newly rebranded commitment to provide entertaining popular content with mass appeal to broad audiences,” said Brandon Burgess, Chairman and CEO, ION Media Networks. “As we broaden our content footprint, we are also putting in place a programming organization that will manage our creative expansion.”

“Theatrical motion pictures are consistent ratings performers and play an important part in a network’s programming mix, so we’re excited to continue our relationship with ION to include this new slate of hit movies from the Warner Bros. collection,” said Ken Werner, President, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution.

ION Television kicks off the first of its Warner Bros. films on Wednesday, September 24th at 8:00 p.m. ET with the comedy favorite Grumpier Old Men (starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Sophia Loren). Through summer 2010, blockbusters featuring some of the biggest names in Hollywood will grace ION Television in a series of cinematic favorites spanning multiple genres.

Dramatic thrillers and crime sagas include classics like The Fugitive (starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones), GoodFellas (starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco and Paul Sorvino) and Heat (starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer and Jon Voight), as well as more recent favorites such as Deep Blue Sea (starring Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, LL Cool J and Samuel L. Jackson) and Training Day (starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke).

Also in the mix are two movies from the famed Batman series, Batman Forever (starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman and Chris O’Donnell) and Batman Returns (starring Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken), plus Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 1, 2 and 4.

Modern comedy classics include The Mask (starring Jim Carrey), Analyze This (starring Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal and Lisa Kudrow) and National Lampoon’s European Vacation (starring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo), among many others.

Rounding out the cinematic variety of ION Television’s “Positively Entertaining” new movie lineup are dramas like City of Angels (starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan) and romantic comedies such as You’ve Got Mail (starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan).