Here’s the IP Lionsgate Now Owns After Buying eOne, from ‘Yellowjackets’ to ‘The Woman King’

Brian Welk
·3 min read
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Shows like “Yellowjackets,” “The Rookie,” and “Naked & Afraid” all have a new home. Lionsgate has officially closed its acquisition of film and TV studio Entertainment One (eOne) from Hasbro for a sum of $375 million in cash, Lionsgate announced on December 27.

That’ll help Lionsgate beef up its own film and TV library, as the studio now has ownership of eOne’s crop of over 6,500 films and shows. Lionsgate already has one of the most impressive standalone film and TV libraries around town — one that has made it attractive for an acquisition of its own — and this deal makes it now well in excess of 20,000 titles.

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On the film side, you’ve got a couple of Best Picture winners like “Green Book” and “Spotlight,” as well as some awards darlings and hits like “1917,” “The Woman King,” “The Post,” “Molly’s Game,” “The BFG,” “The Duke,” “Arrival,” “Booksmart,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and “The U.S. v. Billie Holiday,” among many more. On the TV end, ABC’s “The Rookie,” Showtime’s “Yellowjackets,” Discovery’s “Naked & Afraid,” Netflix’s “The Recruit,” “Spencer Sisters,” “Halt and Catch Fire,” “Fear the Walking Dead,” and “Border Security: Canada’s Front Line” are joining the library. Lionsgate has also acquired select rights (though not full distribution rights), to some of Mark Gordon’s shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Criminal Minds,” and “Designated Survivor.”

As previously announced back in August, the deal also includes the rights for Lionsgate to develop a movie based on Hasbro’s board game “Monopoly.” Kevin Hart was at one point attached to star in such a film, but it’s unclear if he’s still involved with the project. Lionsgate will also have the rights to an unscripted competition series based on another Hasbro property, “Play-Doh Squished.”

Hasbro acquired eOne in 2019 for $3.8 billion. The hope was that having the in-house production capability could help turn the Transformers or Power Rangers brands into the next Marvel. Despite plenty of hits, that plan didn’t pan out, and with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks taking over the toy company in February 2022, the company is now focused on its core brands and will license out IP for its bigger live action properties.

So not coming Lionsgate’s way are brands like “Peppa Pig,” “Transformers,” “Dungeons & Dragons,” “Power Rangers,” “PJ Masks,” “G.I. Joe,” “My Little Pony,” and “Magic: The Gathering,” several of which already have projects in active development at Hasbro. But this arrangement suggests Lionsgate and Starz could be producing or distribution partners on future Hasbro projects.

That is, if Lionsgate doesn’t sell itself. Lionsgate is ending 2023 having recently announced plans to separate its film and TV studios from Starz. By making each standalone companies, it’ll maximize the value for each, and also make the film and TV studios a more attractive acquisition target. All those eOne titles are going to the studio side of the spun off businesses, so that new influx of titles should make it even more so.

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