Influx

Burton, one of the icons in the sport of snowboarding, is going into the movie business.Following in the footsteps of Quicksilver and Vans who funded production for Riding Giants and Dogtown and Z Boys respectively.

Burton will work with Peter Gruber’s Mandalay Entertainment to produce the films. The first is set to be released in August of 2006.

DVDs are already big business for the extreme sports brands. Burton’s deal with Mandalay is all about helping Burton reach the mass audience. Mandalay could be a significant help in getting the films distributed, but it will be tough to create compelling enough to generate a volume audience.

Consider, Dogotwn and Z Boys total worldwide gross, according to boxofficemojo.com is $1.5 million. Riding Giants has done slightly better, with $2.4 million in worldwide reciepts.

There looks like an oportunity for a snowboarding movie of comparable scale, but anything beyond, will be tougher.