EXCLUSIVE: Multimedia Music, an emerging player in the film and TV music rights arena, has finalized three separate deals to acquire works by composers Tyler Bates, David Buckley and Michael Corcoran.
The exact value of the transactions was not disclosed, but each is understood to be in the eight-figure range.
Bates composed scores for the Guardians of the Galaxy and John Wick franchises. His other work includes Deadpool 2, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and TV shows like Californication and The Punisher.
Buckley’s catalog includes scores for films such as Nobody, Greenland, Jason Bourne, The Nice Guys, The Town, The Forbidden Kingdom and episodic series The Good Wife and The Lincoln Lawyer.
Corcoran is known for scoring teen and children’s programming. The Multimedia acquisition covers his scores for iCarly, Victorious, Henry Danger and Liv and Maddie.
Multimedia Music, which is backed by an investment of $100 million from Metropolitan Partners Group and Pinnacle Bank, last February announced the acquisition of original scores by nine-time Oscar nominee James Newton Howard.
Amid the streaming music boom, the value of music rights has been skyrocketing, with major artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and many others closing deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the past couple of years. Film and TV scores, which are key elements of franchise-building, are likewise seeing a surge in demand. The battle for global streaming supremacy among Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon, Warner Bros Discovery, NBCUniversal, Paramount and others has been a tailwind for the sector.
“We are huge fans of Tyler, David and Michael’s work,” Multimedia Music founder and CEO Phil Hope said in a statement. “They are amongst the most active composers in the business today and to acquire such amazing content from their catalogues is an honour for MultiMedia Music.”
Buckley’s agent, Rich Jacobellis of the Fortress Talent Management, saluted “the professionalism of MultiMedia Music and how they handled David’s work. The way the deal was negotiated and quickly closed speaks volumes for how James and Phil operate. Their knowledge of this space is second to none.”
James Gibb, founder and U.S. partner at Multimedia Music, said the company is aiming to assemble “the best independent library of film music rights in the world and the addition of works from these iconic composers gets us closer to that goal.”
