PECKER’S ZANY MAG RESCUED
THERE’S nothing like a good alien abduction story to get your mind off your finances.
Enter Bat Boy LLC.
The newly formed company plans to announce as soon as today that it has acquired supermarket schlock publication, “Weekly World News,” from David Pecker‘s troubled American Media Inc.
Featuring the tongue-in-cheek tagline, “The World’s Only Reliable News,” the tabloid is famous for covering stories with “characters” such as the Lake Erie Monster, Ph.D. Ape, Baby Lion Tamer, and of course, Bat Boy, the half-boy, half-bat creature from which the publication’s new owners take its name.
“We think this is the greatest alternative media vehicle in the universe,” CEO Neil McGinness said, echoing the same hyperbolic fashion that is the hallmark of his new tabloid’s stories. “We look at this new company kind of like Marvel before it got into movies.”
Indeed, McGinness, a former vice president of entertainment for IMG Media, is already following Marvel’s model and moving the “Weekly World News” into merchandising and movie licensing.
McGinness has already struck deals to splash the tabloid’s characters on posters, greeting cards, and calendars. Bat Boy, for instance, is in the process of writing a memoir called “The Audacity of Sonar.”
McGinness has also scored product placement for his title in movies by Dreamworks and Warner Bros. The investor would not disclose terms of the deal.
A replica of the “Weekly World News” cover was used in the Ben Stiller film “Tropic Thunder,” and will be featured in the upcoming “Cats & Dogs” sequel.
While consumer products and licensing have created ancillary revenue lines for Bat Boy, for now the focus will be on the “Weekly World News” Web site. Since its re-launch on Aug. 25, the site has attracted 128,000 unique visitors and 275,000 page views.
“The conspiracy theorists that love the alien abduction and Big Foot whereabouts stories definitely live online,” McGinness said, adding that the tabloid will still be published as a weekly insert in some newspapers.