FX Lands Network Rights To Night at the Museum Sequel

FX has secured the exclusive TV rights to Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which opened at Number 1 with $70 million during the weekend. The network is expected to pay a standard license fee: 12% of the movie’s domestic boxoffice, with a cap at $200 million. With Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on course to cross that mark, FX likely will end up paying $24 million for the Ben Stiller starrer. The network will have it available at the end of 2011 and has an option for broadcast windows. FX already owns the TV rights to 2006’s Night at the Museum, which premiered on the network last week to respectable numbers.

In the past few weeks, FX also has acquired three other films that opened at Number 1 during the spring: Star Trek, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Monsters vs. Aliens. The cable network is bound to claim another boxoffice champ this summer with the upcoming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which it bought several months ago as part of a Paramount package that included last year’s Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder.

Stiller movies, including There’s Something About Mary and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, have been strong performers for FX, which might pair its two Night at the Museum acquisitions with any of Stiller’s older movies or run them as a double feature starting in November 2011.