Pop.com Said to Be for Sale

SAN FRANCISCO (08/31/2000) - Pop.com, one of the most hyped entertainment dot-coms, may have finally found a way to success. As Wednesday drew to a close, word leaked out that Pop.com was on the market, and that IFilm Corp. was the likely buyer.

"We share a common heritage in Paul Allen," said iFilm CEO Kevin Wendle. Allen holds a stake in iFilm and is considered the primary financial backer of Pop.com.

Pop.com was announced nearly a year ago by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen, Ron Howard and Brian Glaser - the founders of DreamWorks SKG - and Imagine Entertainment. Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures was the third partner. At that time, Pop.com's backers said the company would have a broad mission: encompassing online shorts, episodic programming, interactive games and video-on-demand. The site was due to launch in the spring, but has yet to emerge as a commercial entity. In fact, the Pop.com site hasn't changed since its October launch, and recent news reports revealed the company's inability to nail down a working business plan.

Sources say the site had neared launch recently and was shown to DreamWorks and Imagine executives. A Pop.com rep was not available for comment.

IFilm's Wendle insists that the architect of the deal is Allen, who wanted to consolidate his holdings. Wendle points to relationships between iFilm and DreamWorks that seem to make the deal inevitable, such as iFilm chairman Skip Paul's ties to Spielberg.

Aside from the relationships to DreamWorks and Imagine executives, it's hard to determine what iFilm would win from this relationship. Pop.com was mocked among online and entertainment industry people for its failure to launch on time. And over the past year, its few moves have included the acquisition of fan site CountingDown.com, its use of iPix image technology and solicitation of amateur shorts through PopFest.

Should a deal fail to coalesce, Pop.com, not iFilm, will resemble the fool. Pop's delays in launching have created even higher expectations for when it does go live. Should it launch independently without a hit project to its name, its management, including DreamWorks and Imagine, could lose credibility for opting out of the opportunity to sell when the price was right.

IFilm, after a slow start, has nudged AtomFilms out of the online shorts space, and it is battling Creative Planet for leadership in Hollywood's business-to-business sector.

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