Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media has announced that it has acquired Overture Film’s distribution and marketing operation from Starz LLC which allows for Relativity to become a full service studio. About 2/3 of the Overture staff will be moved over to Relativity during the transition, including executives Peter Adee and Kyle Davies, who will retain their titles.

Relativity recently struck a favorable deal with Netflix.  The Overture film library was not part of the deal, it will stay under the Starz umbrella.  Starz will also retain Anchor Bay home video.

Previously, Relativity has had to distribute its films through other companies, but now it will be able to distribute its own movies, including Rogue pictures.  Relativity hopes to put out 25 titles by 2012.

Now Overture will release its last three films, Stone, Jack Goes Boating, and Let Me In through Relativity.  Chris Albrecht, Starz LLC, expressed that an increased emphasis on original programming helped shape the decision.  He also was pleased that many of Overture’s employees would be able to retain their jobs after the move.

Relativity is the company behind this weekend’s Salt.

One film that clearly doesn’t need a remake in my opinion is The Crow. The original is simply timeless in its execution and I feel remaking it will undermine that brilliance. However, sometimes you just can’t stop Hollywood from making a buck (or millions as the case may be).

io9 spoke with producer Ryan Kavanaugh about the upcoming remake film, which according to him is “definitely going to happen.”  Such a definitive statement makes me cringe a little. That said, I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen the film.

While no actors have been attached to the project as of ye,t Kavanaugh did state:

“We’re looking. We’re in discussions….I think it’s something cool, we’re approaching it differently. It’s really a whole relaunch of the franchise, much more of a dark superhero type.”

In addition, there was one comment Kavanaugh made that didn’t make much sense to me. That is his poignant statement, “It’s not a remake it’s literally a relaunch of the franchise.”  Is anyone else getting a little tired of Hollywood executives trying to avoid the dreaded “r” word?  Reboot.  Remake.  Relaunch.  Sorry guys, it’s all the same thing no matter how you try and spin it.

That aside, The Crow story in of itself is a good one. I hope this new film will do the original justice. My only concern is that there were a lot of sequels after the first movie and a TV show, all of which flopped. Here’s hoping the new Crow will return in much better form.