Image Entertainment Partners with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

CHATSWORTH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Image Entertainment, Inc. (OTCQB: DISK) announced today it has entered into a multi-year agreement with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Inc. (SPHE) in which SPHE will handle all manufacturing and distribution services for Image Entertainment’s Blu-ray™ and DVD releases. Image retains its own sales and marketing functions while leveraging Sony’s unique strength including their direct access to traditional accounts and non-traditional distribution. In a separate agreement, Sony has licensed an undisclosed number of titles to Image for distribution. The agreement was announced today by Ted Green, Image Entertainment’s Chairman and CEO.

“Sony is innovative in its technology and is well-versed with the needs of our customers. This agreement allows us to take advantage of their state-of-the-art retail systems while retaining control of the sales and marketing. It also gives us additional quality product to distribute.”

“We are extremely pleased with this new strategic partnership with Sony,” commented Green. “Sony is innovative in its technology and is well-versed with the needs of our customers. This agreement allows us to take advantage of their state-of-the-art retail systems while retaining control of the sales and marketing. It also gives us additional quality product to distribute.”

Added Matt Brown, Executive Vice President, North America/International, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment: "We look forward to working with our partners at Image to leverage both of our vast catalogs while providing our retail customers with the best quality of service."

Some of the classic titles included in the agreement are Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice (Paul Newman and Sally Field), …And Justice For All (directed by Norman Jewison and starring Al Pacino), and Adaptation (directed by Spike Jonze, starring Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper). Image Entertainment plans to release the titles on both Blu-Ray™ and DVD during the term of the agreement.

SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Inc. is a Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE) company. SPE is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE's global operations encompass motion picture production and distribution; television production and distribution; home entertainment acquisition and distribution; a global channel network; digital content creation and distribution; operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services and technologies; and distribution of entertainment in more than 140 countries. Sony Pictures Entertainment can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.sonypictures.com

IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT

Image Entertainment, Inc. is a leading independent licensee and distributor of entertainment programming in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 340 exclusive CD titles in domestic release and more than 450 programs internationally via sublicense agreements. For many of its titles, the Company has exclusive audio and broadcast rights, as well as digital download rights to over 2,100 video programs and approximately 400 audio titles containing more than 5,600 individual tracks. The Company is headquartered in Chatsworth, California. For more information about Image Entertainment, Inc., please go to www.image-entertainment.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 relating to, among other things, its acquisition strategy and the amount and use of net proceeds from the sale of the preferred stock. These statements may be identified by the use of words such as “will,” “may,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “believe,” and other terms of similar meaning in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance or other events or developments. All forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations.

These factors include, but are not limited to, (a) the Company's ability to borrow against the its revolving line of credit, which may not have any or sufficient availability for the Company to acquire desirable programming and to operate its business, (b) the Company's history of losses and the potential of additional losses, (c) the Company's limited working capital and limited access to financing, (d) changing public and consumer taste and changes in customer spending patterns, which may among other things, affect the entertainment and consumer products business generally, (e) increased competitive pressures, both domestically and internationally, which may, among other things, affect the performance of the Company's business operations and profit margins, (f) changes in U.S. and global financial and equity markets, including market disruptions and significant interest rate fluctuations, which may impede the Company's access to, or increase the cost of, external financing for its operations and investments (g) risks associated with the Company's strategy of pursuing acquisitions, joint ventures and partnering arrangements and (h) technological developments that may affect the distribution of the Company’s products or create new risks to the Company’s ability to protect its intellectual property.

For further details and a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, see “Risk Factors” in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for the year ended March 31, 2010. Many of the factors that will determine the outcome of the subject matter of this press release are beyond Image Entertainment’s ability to control or predict. Unless otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.