First 10 Minutes Of Feature To Be Premiered On Popular Habbo.com Website On July 26th; DVD Available In Stores On August 8th
SANTA MONICA, CA/LOS ANGELES, CA (July 25, 2006) - This July, through a partnership with HABBO, one of the world's largest and hottest on-line destinations for teenagers, Lionsgate, the leading independent filmed entertainment studio, will premiere the first 10 minutes of its highly-anticipated MarvelT animated feature, Ultimate Avengers 2, on the popular website, Habbo.com. This event marks the first time the online community will be able to view 10 full minutes of a never-before-seen film prior to its release. A virtual red-carpet premiere event will be held at the Habbo Theaterdome on July 26th at 4:00pm PST, where a host of "special guests" will be in attendance, including the human personas of Captain AmericaT (Steve Rogers), Iron ManT (Tony Stark), The HulkT (Bruce Banner) and Black PantherT (T'Challa). This will be a "black tie" affair - and all Habbos in attendance will be required to dress in black.
During the premiere event, registered users of the site, called "Habbos" will be able to attend by logging in to the virtual community and entering the Habbo Theaterdome to view the film footage and also respond within the community immediately - even while the footage is still playing. After the premiere showing is completed, Habbos will be treated to an interactive Q&A session with the Marvel Heroes from the movie who attended the premiere. Once the premiere event concludes, all other Habbos will be able to view the footage on Habbo.com for two weeks leading up to the August 8th DVD release of Ultimate Avengers 2.
"This partnership with Habbo on Ultimate Avengers 2 opens up exciting, new ways to reach a big audience and do it in a breakthrough way that strengthens the involvement of the consumer" said Michael Rathauser, Vice President of Marketing, Lionsgate. "The Habbo world provides a unique opportunity to not only stream our content for viewing online, but to do it in a community environment that encourages instant reaction to the footage and which generates the potential for significant word-of-mouth. With Habbo's enthusiastic, highly involved user base, the buzz about the movie will just continue to build leading up to the DVD release."
"By partnering with Lionsgate, we are making it possible for our users, aka 'Habbos,' and Marvel fans to interact with one another and extend their Avengers experience through an online event like no other. The Habbo teen community undoubtedly already feels a strong connection to the Avengers characters, such as the HULK, Captain America, Thor, and Iron man, but at the same time, Habbo provides a great forum to attract a new audience as well. This will be the first real time interaction and feedback session of its kind in an online environment, instantly giving the users a sense of ownership," said Janne Kouri, Regional Director, North America.
Ultimate Avengers 2 is the second film in a multi-picture deal between Lionsgate and Marvel Studios and is the sequel to Ultimate Avengers: The Movie. Available on DVD on August 8th for the suggested retail price of $19.98, the film is set in Wakanda, deep in the heart of Africa, and features non-stop animated action that stays true to its comic book roots. Additionally, it boasts highly-entertaining bonus features including a gag reel, a featurette, DVD-ROM game and more.
ABOUT HABBO
HABBO is a richly colorful, multi-dimensional virtual community and game environment for teens. Users join by creating a fully-customized online character called a Habbo. From there, they can explore many public hang outs, play a variety of games, connect with friends, decorate their own rooms, and have fun through creativity and self expression. Since its launch in 2000 by Sulake Corporation, an interactive entertainment company that specializes in developing, publishing and distributing multiplayer social networking communities and games, HABBO sites have been introduced in 18 countries on five continents, with more than 53 million Habbo characters created and more than 7 million unique users each month. The highly-trafficked U.S site, www.habbo.com, is visited by over 1.7 million unique users per month who spend on average more than three hours a week on the site (Nielsen Net Ratings). Sulake has headquarters in Finland and offices in 17 countries. Currently the company has over 270 employees worldwide. Sulake is extending the Habbo brand to include e.g. mobile games and content, and merchandising and licensing products.
http://www.sulake.com/
http://www.habbo.com/
ABOUT LIONSGATE
Lionsgate is the leading independent filmed entertainment studio, winning this year's Best Picture Academy Award R for Crash, generating two consecutive years of $300 million-plus domestic theatrical box office, operating a $500 million-plus home entertainment business and producing a broad slate of prime time television series for fiscal 2007. It is a premier producer and distributor of motion pictures, television programming, home entertainment, family entertainment and video-on-demand content. Its prestigious and prolific library of more than 5,500 titles is a valuable source of stable, recurring revenue and a foundation for the growth of the Company's core businesses. The Lionsgate brand name is synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.
http://www.lionsgate.com/
