Barbie rakes in $800k for Entertainment Rights

UK distributor Entertainment Rights has closed a $800k raft of licence deals for its upcoming cgi feature Barbie in the Nutcracker.

The deals mean that the company has now recouped all of its initial $2.3m investment in picking up the international TV and video rights to the film back in March this year.

Entertainment Rights has inked pre-sale deals with broadcasters in 55 territories, including: Super RTL (Germany), Telecinco (Spain), Mediaset (Italy), TVI (Portugal), TV2 (Denmark), TV2 (Norway), RTL4 (Holland), Seven Network (Australia), TVB (Hong Kong), EBS (Taiwan), Televisa (Mexico) and Globo TV (Brazil).

All the broadcasters will scheduled the show to air over the upcoming festive period. In the UK, the show will go straight-to-video, with a release by ER's home video division Right Entertainment due for early November.

The feature is an adaptation of Tchaikovsky's 1891 classic, with Mattel's doll Barbie playing the parts of both Clara and The Sugarplum Princess.

The 75' cgi film is being produced by Mainframe Entertainment.