Shout! Factory And Mill Creek Entertainment Announce ULTRAMAN Distribution Alliance

Shout! Factory, a multi-platform media company, and Mill Creek Entertainment announced a landmark distribution alliance to bring Tsuburaya Productions’ iconic Ultraman superhero library to streaming entertainment platforms in North America. The announcement was made today by Shout! Factory’s founders and CEOs Bob Emmer and Garson Foos; Jeff Hayne, SVP of Mill Creek Entertainment; Shout’s Senior Vice President of Digital Enterprises and Shout! Factory TV, Gene Pao; and Jordan Fields, Shout’s Vice President of Acquisitions.

The multi-year alliance provides Shout! Factory and its multi-platform streaming service, Shout! Factory TV with exclusive SVOD and AVOD digital rights in the U.S. and Canada to Tsuburaya’s expansive catalog of ULTRAMAN properties including more than 1100 episodes and 20 movies. Iconic series and popular movies include ULTRA Q, ULTRAMAN, ULTRASEVEN, RETURN OF ULTRAMAN, ULTRAMAN ACE, ULTRAMAN TARO, ULTRAMAN GAIA, ULTRAMAN GAIA: THE BATTLE IN HYPER SPACE, ULTRAMAN COSMOS, ULTRAMAN NEXUS, ULTRAMAN MAX, ULTRAMAN MEBIUS, ULTRAMAN MEBIUS & ULTRAMAN BROTHERS, MEGA MONSTER BATTLE ULTRA GALAXY: THE MOVIE, ULTRAMAN SAGA, ULTRAMAN GINGA, ULTRAMAN GINGA S, ULTRAMAN X, ULTRAMAN ORB, ULTRAMAN GEED, and a long list of notable titles.

Shout! Factory TV plans an aggressive rollout of ULTRAMAN pop culture properties on its new TOKUSHOUTSU™ streaming channel this year, including individual programs as well as complete series. As excitement builds, Shout! Factory TV, in collaboration with Tsuburaya Productions and Indigo Entertainment, will announce additional news and activities in forthcoming months.

“A colossus of the tokusatsu genre, Ultraman is one of the most beloved and enduring pop culture brands in the world and, amazingly, it’s still growing. So it’s particularly exciting to present more than 50 years of TV series and feature films to North American audiences, much of it for the first time. They’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and we aim to help that happen,” stated Jordan Fields, Vice President of Acquisitions at Shout! Factory.

“We’re incredibly excited about this new relationship with Mill Creek Entertainment and Indigo Entertainment. Tsuburaya Productions’ Ultraman continues to stand as a seminal pop-culture phenomenon to this day. Over the years, Shout! Factory TV has presented Ultraman Leo and multiple seasons of other popular Japanese tokusatsu series to incredible fan reception. We look forward to bringing these highly entertaining Ultraman series and movies to our streaming program lineup for Shout’s TokuSHOUTsu™ channel, available on Pluto TV,” stated Gene Pao. “As we actively expand our reach in streaming and digital platforms, this deal exemplifies the type of pop culture content we plan to pursue, which taps into the interests and passions of our loyal fanbase.”

”We are thrilled about this collaboration with Shout! Factory,” stated Jeff Hayne, SVP of Mill Creek Entertainment. “Their passion for tokusatsu content combined with the reach their digital channels have to fans will create further awareness of the Ultraman content library and the collectible SteelBook® and Blu-ray products that Mill Creek Entertainment will continue to release.”

The classic Ultraman live-action television series of the 1960s and 70s, produced by Tsuburaya Productions, established new heights of quality adventure and special effects-driven entertainment and built a worldwide audience for the property. Hailing from the distant Nebula M78, Ultraman is a Giant of Light who protects Earth and the human race from an endless array of invading aliens and terrifying monsters together with the crew of the Earth-based defense team using advanced high-tech weapons and vehicles. Ultraman battles monsters that cause endless mayhem and destruction on Earth. With the ability to extend his height to over 130 feet, Ultraman merges with a human and only emerges in times of extreme danger to save people and the Earth. The popularity of Ultraman—and the aliens and monsters—has enabled the series to persist to this day, generating over $50 million per year in toys and merchandise in Japan.

About Mill Creek Entertainment
Mill Creek Entertainment is the home entertainment industry’s leading independent studio for Blu-ray, DVD, and digital distribution. With direct sales pipelines to all primary retail and online partners, Mill Creek Entertainment licenses, produces, markets and distributes a dynamic array of film and television content to over 30,000 retail stores and thousands of websites reaching millions of customers across North America. Mill Creek Entertainment’s expansive library includes Oscar®-winning theatrical feature films, Emmy®-winning classic and current TV series, original documentary productions and pop-culture favorites that enlighten, educate and entertain. Mill Creek Entertainment also owns and operates movieSPREE, an on-demand transactional streaming service offering movie bundles, complete TV series and premium entertainment options with apps available on Roku, AppleTV, iOS, Amazon Fire TV, Android and iOS. Mill Creek Entertainment is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For more information, please visit www.millcreekent.com or www.movieSPREE.com

About Shout! Factory TV
Shout! Factory TV is a digital entertainment streaming service that brings timeless and contemporary cult favorites to pop culture fans. Shout! Factory TV offers an unrivaled blend of original programming and TV shows and movies curated from major studios, independent producers and its own distinctive entertainment library. The Shout! Factory TV family of channels also includes Mystery Science Theater 3000 and TokuSHOUTsu™, with more to come soon. Shout! Factory TV provides an immersive, high-quality viewing experience across a wide variety of platforms: online at ShoutFactoryTV.com, on smartphone devices, tablets and connected TV, and via apps on the Roku player, Android, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV. Shout! Factory TV is also available as a branded channel on Amazon Prime Channels, Comcast Xfinity, Pluto TV, Redbox, Roku Premium Subscriptions, Samsung TV Plus, STIRR, Tubi, Twitch, Vizio and XUMO among others. For more information, please visit ShoutFactoryTV.com

About Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory, LLC is a diversified multi-platform media company devoted to producing, uncovering, preserving, and revitalizing the very best of pop culture. Founders Richard Foos, Bob Emmer, and Garson Foos have spent their entire careers sharing their music, television and film favorites with discerning consumers the world over. Shout! Factory’s entertainment offerings serve up feature films, classic and contemporary TV series, animation, live music and comedy specials. In addition, Shout! Factory maintains a vast entertainment distribution network that delivers culturally relevant programming, movie, and audio content to all the leading digital service providers in North America and across multiple platforms. Shout! Factory owns and operates Shout! Studios, Scream Factory, Shout! Factory Kids, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Shout! Factory TV. These riches are the result of a creative acquisition mandate that has established the company as a hotbed of cultural preservation and commercial reinvention. Shout! Factory is based in Los Angeles, California. For more on Shout! Factory, visit shoutfactory.com.