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LOS ANGELES — Tribeca Enterprises, the Manhattan-based independent film concern co-founded by Robert De Niro, has agreed to sell a 50 percent stake to the Madison Square Garden Company in a deal that values Tribeca at $45 million.
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The deal, which the partners announced on Saturday, brings together two of New York’s highest-profile show business brands, one wrestling with ambitions that it has never quite been able to achieve on its own — Tribeca — and the other a deep-pocketed sports and live entertainment company that is also looking to expand.
“You do get to a point when you’re a start-up, in essence, when you can’t do it alone,” said Jane Rosenthal, Tribeca’s chief executive. Ms. Rosenthal, an experienced producer of movies like “Meet the Parents,” founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002 with Mr. De Niro and Craig Hatkoff.
Tribeca Enterprises has grown into much more than a downtown festival, the annual installment of which begins on April 16 and will include 89 feature films and 58 shorts culled from more than 6,100 submissions. Among other ventures, Tribeca also runs international film events, a two-screen theater, a digital studio and a fledgling division that releases specialty movies both digitally and in theaters.
But its festival, founded as a cultural balm for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is by far Tribeca’s biggest asset, and the Madison Square Garden Company’s interest says something important about such events: Once largely ad hoc artistic celebrations, some film festivals have, in fact, become promising businesses.
The partnership also cuts to the heart of New York indie-film politics by expanding the reach of James L. Dolan, the executive chairman of the publicly traded Madison Square Garden Company, whose holdings include its namesake arena, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Knicks basketball franchise and the New York Rangers hockey team.
The company’s deal for Tribeca comes amid a recent setback. On Friday, the company’s MSG Productions group announced that “Heart and Lights,” a new dance-oriented show featuring the Rockettes that it was producing at Radio City, was canceled less than a week before its scheduled opening and delayed until at least 2015.
Mr. Dolan, a close friend and occasional business partner of the movie executive Harvey Weinstein, sits on the board of AMC Networks, which owns SundanceTV, the IFC channel and IFC Films, a major art-house distributor. Mr. Dolan, who will join the Tribeca Enterprises board, is also the chief executive of Cablevision Systems, the New York City-area cable provider.
Speaking by telephone, Ms. Rosenthal and Tad Smith, the Madison Square Garden Company’s new chief executive, offered few details of their plans together but emphasized their lofty aspirations. “You put these two companies together, and the world is our oyster,” Mr. Smith said.
Ms. Rosenthal said Tribeca intends to expand its festival-related programs greatly by taking advantage of the Madison Square Garden Company’s real estate across the country, which includes the Beacon Theater in New York, the Wang Theater in Boston, the Forum in the Los Angeles area and the Chicago Theater.
Opening night at Tribeca’s festival in April, for instance, will be held at the Beacon on the Upper West Side. For the first time, Tribeca will sell tickets to the event, which has historically been an invitation-only screening. This year’s kickoff will include the premiere of “Time Is Illmatic,” a documentary about the rapper Nas, who will also perform.
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Tribeca and the Madison Square Garden Company will also “explore joint sponsorship opportunities,” Mr. Smith said. But he said there are no immediate plans to funnel Tribeca films into MSG Networks, which includes a regional sports television channel, and Fuse, a music channel.
Tribeca’s sale does not give the Madison Square Garden Company majority control — for now. “Over time, we have opportunities to increase our stake, and we are optimistic that will happen,” Mr. Smith said.
Ms. Rosenthal will continue to run Tribeca Enterprises with its current president and chief operating officer, Jon Patricof, a nephew of the co-founder Mr. Hatkoff. Mr. De Niro “remains right where he always has been, which is very involved,” Ms. Rosenthal said. Tribeca employs about 70 people, and no layoffs are planned, according to a spokeswoman.
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Ms. Rosenthal said the decision to sell half of Tribeca was in no way tied to her recent divorce from Mr. Hatkoff, who remains involved with the company. “Church and state,” she said.
Although it still trails the older Sundance Institute, Tribeca has succeeded in creating a strong brand in a very short time, and its festival’s film selections are increasingly respected by Hollywood insiders. Tribeca has also carved out a reputation for aggressively experimenting with new ventures; one of the latest is called Tribeca Innovation Week, which is dedicated to storytelling via new technologies.
But in some ways, the company has struggled. Its distribution division, Tribeca Film, has released about 30 movies in theaters over the past three years and taken in less than $1 million total, according to Box Office Mojo, a ticket sales database.
Asked if she thought Tribeca Film was faring better, worse or about how she expected, Ms. Rosenthal said, “Nothing is ever what I expect, and I suppose I should end that sentence there.” Tribeca Film has found several video-on-demand hits, including “How to Make Money Selling Drugs” and “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.” Two of its recently released two foreign films — “War Witch” and “The Broken Circle Breakdown” — received Oscar nominations.
Correction: March 22, 2014 An earlier version of this article misstated the day that this year’s Tribeca Film Festival will begin. It is April 16, not April 13.
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