Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures, the production company behind “Sausage Party,” has launched Annapurna Interactive, a division which will produce and publish video games.

Annapurna Interactive will publish two games targeting Spring 2017 release dates: Jason Roberts’ “Gorogoa” and Giant Sparrow’s “What Remains of Edith Finch.” “Gorogoa” is a story within a puzzle where the player moves panels on a grid. “Edith Finch” is a collection of short stories centered around the cursed Finch family.

Annapurna Interactive will also release games from other developers like Funomena and Creative Director Keita Takahashi, creator of the “Katamari Damacy” franchise.

Also Read: Erik Lomis to Exit The Weinstein Company to Join Megan Ellison’s Annapurna

The division will be run by a team of veterans whose credits include “Journey,” “Mortal Kombat,” “Flower” and “Fat Princess.”

“I’ve had a great passion for video games for as long as I can remember.  Growing up, ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ was one of my all-time favorites,” said Annapurna’s founder and CEO Megan Ellison in a statement. “My brother and I ran up quite a bill calling the 1-900 numbers for tips on those games, before the internet provided game-guides. The artistry and diversity of interactive storytelling is exciting and we look forward to exploring the limitless possibilities in gaming. We want to empower artists across this medium to make Annapurna Interactive their home and I believe we’ve assembled the perfect team to make that happen.”

Also Read: Kathryn Bigelow to Direct True Crime Drama About Detroit Riots for Annapurna

The Interactive team added, “We believe video games have a powerful ability to stir emotion. We are excited by the opportunity to collaborate with the artists who inspire us in order to bring memorable experiences to all players, whether experienced or first-time gamers.”

Annapurna’s most recent credits include “20th Century Women,” “Sausage Party,” “Wiener-Dog” and “Everybody Wants Some!!”

51 Summer Movies on Our Radar: From ‘Captain America: Civil War’ to ‘Sausage Party’ (Photos)

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  « Captain America: Civil War » (May 6)

  The Avengers are back in the third standalone film for « Captain America, » in which political pressure to register superheroes with the government divides the team.

  Marvel
  

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  Getty Images
  
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  « Elstree 1976 » (May 6)

  The documentary features actors and extras from the « Star Wars » franchise as they remember their times on set and talk about how the making of the films affected their lives. Derek Lyons, Anthony Forrest and Laurie Goode all make appearances.

  
  

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  StudioCanal
  
  
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  « Money Monster » (May 13)
  

  Julia Roberts and George Clooney reunite once again in this story about a business network TV host and his producer who face a tough situation when an armed investor seizes their studio.

  Tristar
  
  

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  « The Lobster » (May 13)

  Single denizens of The City in this film’s dystopian future must find a romantic partner within 45 days, or they’re transformed into beasts and sent into the Woods. Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz star.

  A24
  

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  « Dheepan » (May 13)

  After winning the Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, the drama will be released in the U.S. by IFC/Sundance Selects. It deals with a former soldier, a young woman and a child who pose as a family to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka.

  IFC Films
  

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  Focus World
  
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  Universal
  
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  Sony/Columbia
  
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  Warner Bros.
  
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  « Weiner » (May 20)

  The documentary that disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner now regrets granting access, follows his 2013 mayoral bid which ended in a now infamous sexting scandal.

  IFC Films/Sundance Selects
  

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  « Holy Hell » (May 20)

  Twenty years in the making, this documentary goes inside The Buddha Field, a cult formed in the 1980s in West Hollywood, California. Filmmaker Will Allen is a former member of the sect who uses archival footage to tell the story of its charismatic leader, who forced members to perform sex acts, get abortions and undergo plastic surgery, often using hypnotherapy.

  FilmRise
  

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  Disney
  
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  « The Do-Over » (May 27)

  Adam Sandler signed a four-picture production with Netflix, and « The Do-Over, » costarring David Spade, is his second entry, following last year’s « Ridiculous Six. » In the film, the two decide to fake their own deaths in order to start over with new identities.

  Netflix
  

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  Twentieth Century Fox
  
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  « Me Before You » (June 3)

  Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin star in the on-screen adaptation of Jojo Moyes’ bestselling novel, in which a small town girl becomes the caretaker of a disabled man. Improbably, they fall in love.

  Warner Bros.
  

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  « The Bye Bye Man » (June 3)

  The horror film was most recently moved from October, and follows three college students who move into a house off campus to discover a supernatural entity called the Bye Bye Man. They must save each other while keeping the entity’s existence a secret from others. It cleared the date for Ben Affleck‘s “The Accountant.”

  STX Entertainment
  

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  « The Conjuring 2 » (June 10)

  The sequel to 2013’s « The Conjuring » welcomes back 
  Vera Farmiga and
  Patrick Wilson as they try to help a single mother whose house is plagued by demons.

  Warner Bros.
  

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  Universal
  
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  Lionsgate
  
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  « Central Intelligence » (June 17)

  The upcoming action comedy stars Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson as the unlikely duo teams up for a « top-secret »case. 

  Warner Bros.
  

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  « Finding Dory » (June 17)

  The long-awaited sequel to 2003’s « Finding Nemo » centers on his blue friend, Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), who goes on a mission to find her long-lost loved ones.

  Disney
  

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  « Swiss Army Man » (June 17)

  Known as the « farting corpse » movie, it stars Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe. The film was sold to A24 after premiering at Sundance Film Festival — before a number of walkouts.

  A24
  

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  STX Entertainment
  
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  Fox
  
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  « The Shallows » (June 24)

  A young surfer (Blake Lively) finds herself stranded on a small rock off shore after she’s attacked by a great white shark in this horror movie. She’ll spend the majority of it failing to return to land.

  Sony/Columbia
  

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  Disney
  
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  « The Legend of Tarzan » (July 1)

  We’ve all seen the stills of Alexander Skarsgard shirtless for this role, so naturally, we’re excited to see him play Tarzan alongside Margot Robbie’s Jane.

  Warner Bros.
  

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  « The Purge: Election Year » (July 1)

  « The Purge » films have performed consistently well at the box office despite their low budgets. This third installment in the franchise focuses on a presidential contender who vows to eliminate the annual Purge.

  Universal
  

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  Bleecker Street
  
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  Fox
  
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  Universal
  
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  Sony
  
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  Broad Green Pictures
  
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  « Lights Out » (July 22)

  A mother tries to save her children from a malicious force of the darkness; the same that haunted her when she was a little girl. Teresa Palmer and Gabriel Bateman star.

  Warner Bros.
  

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  Fox Searchlight
  
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  Paramount
  
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  STX Entertainment
  
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  Universal
  
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  « Indignation » (July 29)

  James Schamus is making his directorial feature film debut with « Indignation, » a drama set in 1951 in which a Jewish student struggles with sexual repression at a small Ohio college. 

  Roadside/Summit
  

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  Weinstein Company
  
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  David Ayers Twitter/Warner Bros.
  
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  Paramount
  
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  Disney
  
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  Sony/Columbia
  
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  Sony Pictures Classics
  
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  « War Dogs » (August 19)

  At the height of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, two partying young entrepreneurs land an arms deal with the government worth hundreds of millions. Jonah Hill and Miles Teller star.

  Warner Bros.
  

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  « Southside with You » (August 19)

  A smash hit at this year’s Sundance, Richard Tanne’s romantic dramedy looks at the first date between Barack and Michelle Obama. Patrick Sawyers and Tika Sumpter star.

  Roadside/Miramax
  

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  Sony/TriStar
  
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  « Hands of Stone » (August 26)

  Edgar Ramirez will lace up the gloves to play Roberto Duran, the legendary Panamanian boxer who KO’d Sugar Ray Leonard and became champion in four weight classes. Robert De Niro and Usher also star.

  The Weinstein Company
  

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TheWrap Summer Movie Preview 2016: “Dheepan,” “Angry Birds” and “Ghostbusters” are also among season’s big releases

MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Magisto, the world’s most popular smart video storytelling application,
today announced Magisto
for Marketers, an amplification of its Magisto for Business platform
tailored specifically to marketers. The new platform uses artificial
intelligence to help drive the transition from traditional marketing
creative to digital-first, mobile video marketing for businesses of all
sizes.

Magisto for Marketers introduces Intelligent Marketing creative
into Magisto’s patented artificial intelligence engine – Emotional Sense
Technology™. This gives marketing professionals the ability to easily
create marketing videos for a variety of disciplines including content
marketing, product marketing, brand marketing and performance marketing.

Magisto’s new offering allows marketers to create multiple variations of
optimized videos by use case, platform, audience, message, product and
ROI performance. The AI technology incorporates easy-to-use editing
styles designed for businesses, the ability to add custom branding to
clone videos and to direct Magisto’s AI to refine messaging and produce
multiple A/B test creatives. It also includes themes that automatically
optimize marketing videos for Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

“For the first time, we’re making video marketing agile, completely
changing the economics of video production and drastically improving its
ROI,” said Magisto’s CEO and Founder, Oren Boiman. “Magisto for
Marketers distinctively meets a massive market need for producing
digital video with scale, velocity and creative variation.”

Magisto’s AI-powered platform is uniquely designed to help businesses
new to video creation easily deliver video marketing and help companies
that already use video transition to digital.

In fact, Borrell Associates highlights the importance and growth of
digital video. “As businesses work to include mobile with desktop and
video with print, the digital marketing space rapidly evolves,” says
Corey Elliott, VP of Research with Borrell Associates. “This year,
almost $29 billion will be spent in the U.S. to produce online video and
is predicted to grow to $41 billion in 2017.”

Shahar Erez, SVP Products at Kenshoo adds, “Marketers are facing a
creative log jam when it comes to scalable video advertising. Magisto is
a powerful video creative solution that allows marketers to refresh
video creative regularly, adjust by publisher, and to understand which
of these assets drives the best results. In partnership with Kenshoo’s Creative
Manager and publisher network, marketers can deploy highly targeted
videos at the speed the market demands.”

New York City marketing and loyalty platform, flok, recently used
Magisto for Marketers as part of their customer acquisition efforts on Facebook.

“We see tremendous opportunity for video across all aspects of our
business from product marketing to customer acquisition,” said Ido
Gaver, CEO and co-founder of flok. “Magisto’s AI-driven creative
platform helped accelerate our video marketing efforts by an order of
magnitude compared to traditional video production.”

Magisto for Marketers is now available via the web and will be available
on mobile early in 2017. To learn more about the Magisto for Marketers,
click here;
for a full feature list and pricing click here.

About Magisto

Magisto is the world’s most popular smart video storytelling application
that uses Emotional Sense Technology™, patented story detection that
automatically analyzes and edits raw video footage and photos into
produced personal movies and professional marketing videos. Businesses
use Magisto to create and deploy video marketing creative with
unprecedented ease, agility and speed. Magisto is available for iOS,
Android and the Web. It’s not magic, it’s Magisto. For more information,
visit magisto.com, magisto.com/business or find us @magisto.

YouTube, however, will not be affected, as it is considered a supplier of user-generated content.

Apple’s iTunes and Apple TV and Google Play are to be hit by a Russian draft legislation introducing restrictions on foreign ownership of online video services.

Under a draft law penned by the Media Communications Union (MKS), an industry association that includes Russia’s major telecom companies and media groups, foreign ownership of online video services operating in Russia will have to be limited to 20 percent stakes.

Google Play, iTunes and Apple TV will be directly affected by the legislation because they offer, in addition to other content, movies and television services and shows, the local business daily Vedomosti reported.

According to the report, if the draft is adopted, foreign video services will have to pull out of Russia or change ownership to comply with the law.

Vedomosti quoted an MKS representative as saying that Apple and Google will have the option of requesting an exemption through the government commission for foreign investment.

Apple and Google haven’t released subscriber figures for Russia, but iTunes and Google Play are considered to be among the market leaders, while Apple TV is less popular.

Google and Apple did not reply to The Hollywood Reporter‘s request for comment.

Meanwhile, contrary to initial fears, the legislation won’t affect YouTube.

« Services that provide user-generated content, such as YouTube, as well as social media and search engines won’t be affected by the legislation, » MKS said in a statement sent to THR.

Although the draft has yet to be approved by Russian parliament, its chances for passing through parliament are high. A similar legislation concerning foreign ownership of media companies was adopted with ease two years ago.

That legislation came into effect on Jan. 1, 2016, forcing Sweden’s Modern Times Group, which owned 39 percent of the Russian TV company CTC Media, to sell its stake and pull out, while Discovery was forced to enter a joint venture with a local company to continue distributing its channels in the country.