EXCLUSIVE: FX Snags Rights to Surprise Box Office Champion 'Chronicle'

FX has purchased the broadcast rights to last weekend's surprise box office leader Chronicle, the network confirmed.

The action film, featuring an unknown cast playing young people who acquired telekinetic abilities, sold $22 million worth of tickets during its opening weekend.

The cable network also bought Red Tails, which has taken in $41 million since it was released three weeks ago, in a multi-picture deal with Fox.

In a deal with Sony, FX also landed the rights to Underworld Awakening, which has generated $54 million at the box office over three weeks.

Terms of the deals were not disclosed. Networks generally pay a percentage of box office for theatrical films they televise.  Most films bought now won't appear on basic cable till 2013 or 2014.

FX has been the most aggressive of ad-supported basic cable networks in buying top-grossing films.

Late last year FX acquired Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and We Bought a Zoo.

"We landed 19 films that grossed more than $100 million representing two-thirds of all films that topped that mark, which was by far our best year ever," Chuck Saftler executive VP of FX Networks and architect of its movie strategy, said in a statement at the time.

While FX leans toward action and superhero films favored by young audiences, it also buys films that attract women and children, broadening its audience and creating an appeal for a wider variety of advertisers.

Action films currently on the network including Iron ManStar TrekGhost Rider and X-Man Origins Wolverine. It will also be showing and 27 DressesWhen in Rome and Ice Age 2.

The movies provide a platform for the network's signature original programming, which includes dramas such as Justified and American Horror Story, as well as comedies such as ArcherIt's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaLouie and Charlie Sheen's upcomingAnger Management.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.