Distribution

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• Film distribution is the commercial process that makes a feature film available to the general public. It usually also includes determining a marketing strategy.

• In the old days, major film distribution companies put a movie into theaters, it ran there for up to a year, and then was gone.
• Nowadays movies are... everywhere. That "everywhere" is called ancillary rights.
• Ancillary rights and revenue gets hammered out in the initial deal between distributor and filmmaker. So a filmmaker can lose money off his film.
• Why? Because people are chomping at the bit to see the movies at home. Or on their mobile device.
• Ancillary rights have become so important that now movies are doing a simultaneous release. 
• Distribution rights refer to the ability of one company to sell another company's product. 
• green-light something is to formally approve its production finance and to commit to this financing, thereby allowing the project to move forward from the development phase to pre-production and principal photography.
• Ancillary markets are non-theatrical markets for feature films, like home video, television, Pay Per View, VOD, Internet streaming, airlines and others.