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Sep 30 09 2:19 PM
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Oct 1 09 8:07 PM
That was the overall message of Moviegoers 2010, the first report on moviegoing habits produced by Stradella Road, the entertainment marketing firm founded by former New Line Web guru Gordon Paddison that hopes to assist film marketers in determining how to reach consumers over the next decade.
The study found that teens and twentysomethings are especially focused on being able to customize entertainment and are quick to share their opinions with others digitally -- especially as usage of the Internet, mobile devices and DVRs has become more widespread. An estimated 94% of all moviegoers are now online.
The younger demo is especially key in spreading word of mouth, with 73% of moviegoers surveyed having profiles on social networking sites.
It's a point that's been made a number of times as sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have grown in popularity. But the study is one of the few to break down specific age groups and how they consume movies and the marketing messages leading up to their releases.
Given the increased influence of websites on which consumers buy movie tickets, AOL, Facebook, Fandango, Google, Microsoft, MovieTickets.com and Yahoo were enlisted to supply data for the study.
Study was conducted by surveying 1,547 moderate-to-heavy moviegoers over eight days in July, with an additional 2,305 questioned by phone or online during July. Nielsen NRG managed the research fieldwork.
Although many moviegoers are going online to get info on upcoming releases, TV still dominates as the leading tool to generate awareness for films, with 73% of those surveyed saying they first heard about a movie by watching a 30-second spot. In-theater trailers were close behind with 70%, followed by word of mouth (46%) and the Internet (44%).
Most films are now considered critic-proof, especially among the younger set, with 84% of moviegoers saying, "When they make up their mind to see a movie, it doesn't matter what the critics say about it."
It may depend on who's giving them the thumbs up or down, however.
Of those surveyed, 75% said they trust a friend's opinion more than a movie critic; 80% said they were more likely to see a movie after hearing a positive review from other moviegoers, while only 67% said a thumbs up from a professional critic had the same weight.
Yet only 40% said negative reviews from their peers would dissuade them from seeing a movie, while an even lower 28% would be kept from theaters because of a critic's opinion, meaning that at the end of the day, negative word of mouth doesn't have as much influence.
While 62% now get their reviews online, only auds over 50 rely on newspaper reviews.
The results hardly give Hollywood anything to worry about. The box office is so far up this year and looks like it will be strong for years to come despite the current recession, the study said.
That is mainly because 79% of those questioned said, "Going to the movies is a good escape from everyday life."
Posts: 5376
Oct 2 09 5:33 AM
Official JMMB Twitter Master
We know there's a bottleneck in distribution. Small-scale movies with modest prospects are cherry-picked by Magnolia, IFC and Sony Pictures Classics at bargain prices, partly because nobody else is competing with them. But many others go begging.
Focus Features' James Schamus openly admits that he sees plenty of movies that he loves, but won't buy. (When he does pay $10 million for Hamlet 2, he gets punished.) Miramax's Daniel Battsek sits on the sidelines, waiting for various co-productions to be ready (he has a solid 2010 line-up), and says that he too wishes that he could release many of the movies that he declines to buy. As a studio subsidiary, he says, most of the time he would have to overpay. Fox Searchlight jumps in only when they see a marketable breakout opportunity, like Slumdog Millionaire or The Wrestler.
But SPC's Michael Barker and Tom Bernard don't spend too much. Is this a question of identity, perception, purpose? In the Weinstein era, Miramax released a wide range of movies of various budgets and genres, some 30 a year, and lived on the proceeds of the breakouts. SPC does something similar, but different: they manage their business so that each movie costs so little to make and/or acquire and release that they can get by with modest profits-and share them with the filmmakers. Do they spend as much as their studio colleagues to build major grosses? Not even close. But should they?
[Photo: At the Toronto Fest, The Weinstein Co. beat out the studio specialty divisions to acquire Tom Ford's A Single Man.]
If SPC is running a solid business, releasing more small movies and taking advantage of the product surplus, scooping up the best of international and indie cinema, why can't Searchlight, Focus and Miramax do the same? What if the future is about more narrow-niche movies, while the market for mid-budget movies for adults is falling apart and difficult to sustain? Why can't Searchlight, Miramax and Focus join the fray?
In a tough economy, studio parents may make it difficult for them to be in that business. I would argue that the marketing staffs at these companies are capable of handling more projects, even if does take a hideous amount of energy and work for small reward. That's why these companies only buy the hard-sell pictures when they fall in love, say, with the likes of Searchlight's Once or Miramax's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But Miramax, especially, seems to be so identified with an older adult demo. What if they broke out of that mold and went younger, hipper, cheaper?
No matter how tough things may be for his company right now, Harvey Weinstein still beat out the studios to acquire A Single Man, the biggest buy at Toronto.
Certainly, people get stuck with an established business plan, and are afraid to fail. But sometimes people become so accustomed to the way things are that they remain locked into an old paradigm. Until it's too late. I'd suggest going to the site because some of comments are also very interesting/informative: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2009/09/30/indie_fallout_should_studio_specialty_units_change_focus/
Oct 4 09 7:30 AM
Oct 4 09 3:12 PM
New York's IFC Center is expanding its venue from three to five auditoriums, augmenting the arthouse theater's capacity by 25%. Construction is underway, in the space once used as a bar and restaurant, and the new theaters are expected to open to the public in early 2010. Operators tout the expansion as a boon for its specialty-oriented programming, giving more capacity to films such as "Gomorrah," "Inland Empire" and "Che" which have opened at the venue in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.
Originally built as a church in the early 19th century, the IFC Center building first became a cinema in 1937 as the Waverly, a grand, single-screen neighborhood theater that later embraced the countercultural cinematic movements of the '60s and '70s when it gave "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" its original midnight launch. The Waverly closed and stood idle in 2001, but the building re-opened and refurbished as IFC Center in 2005. Bogdanow Partners Architects, PC were responsible for the renovation design in 2005, as well as the current expansion project. Today, the venue is one of only a few independent theaters that projects from the DCI-compliant DCP format. Operators said via a release, that the venue has increased its box office sales, with 2009 "up significantly" from 2008.
IFC Center has also attracted well-known filmmakers for its series of specialized programming, including as David Lynch, George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Apted, Terry Gilliam, Isabella Rossellini, John Malkovich, Jane Fonda, Spike Lee, Michael Moore, DA Pennebaker and Albert Maysles. Among the popular ongoing series at IFC Center are its repertoary series and retrospectives as well as Midnight movies and its focus on documentary, Stranger Than Fiction, a project spearheaded by Toronto International Film Festival documentary programmer, Thom Powers.
"We're very proud to be both a neighborhood theater for the West Village, as well as key destination cinema for cineastes from all over," commented John Vanco, VP & GM of IFC Center in a statement. "With the addition of these two new screens, we look forward to being able to show even more great movies to even bigger audiences."
Offerings this weekend at IFC Center include "Interviews with Hideous Men," "Paris" and "In the Loop" from its sister division, IFC Films.
Oct 4 09 3:48 PM
Oct 5 09 8:21 PM
Universal has done the expected. In the corporate game of Survivor, co-chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde are out and new co-chairmen Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley are in.
Universal Pictures CEO Ron Meyer has dipped into his executive bench again, and has elevated his marketing and distribution chief and production head. But will this duo solve his problems? Are Fogelson and Langley any sharper or more experienced than their predecessors? That is the question going forward. Certainly, Meyer will need to become more involved in key decisions.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2009/10/05/universal_shoe_drops_marketing_chief_fogelson_new_chairman/
Oct 6 09 12:47 AM
Oct 7 09 3:34 AM
Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley are taking over a studio whose film slate has been battered at the box office and whose corporate parents appear headed for divorce.
Their efforts to energize the film studio could be affected by the complex corporate negotiations involving Comcast, General Electric and Vivendi.
"But this is a move Ron Meyer had to make," said a senior Universal executive. "He had to demonstrate a sharp change in direction."
The difficult timing for any studio head is reflected in the fact that Fogelson and Langley's announcement coincides with the appointment of a new topper at Disney, Rich Ross. Thus the new Universal co-chairmen don't even have a day in the spotlight to themselves.
An executive at a rival studio noted that, in naming Fogelson as studio chairman, Universal is again choosing a marketing executive for the top production post. Marc Shmuger's background was marketing and David Linde was a specialist in international distribution who built several indie film companies.
Langley, who has just returned from maternity leave, was instrumental, with the Shmuger-Linde team, in selecting much of the slate of the past few years.
"It's not a secret that Adam had creative aspirations, and maybe he and Donna will bring the leadership many of us felt was lacking at the end," said one producer who declined to be identified.
Still, with the ownership question still up in the air, one talent agent observed that the new U duo will have to cope with the fact that top talent is often reluctant to commit to a company in flux.
Shmuger and Linde succeeded Stacey Snider when she left to partner with Steven Spielberg in DreamWorks. They did a lot of things quickly, making new deals with core producers Imagine, Working Title, Marc Platt (Wanted's producer), Playtone and others. They supervised an overhaul of the international distribution operation and put an emphasis on empowering hitmaking directors to make modestly priced films for their home countries, like "Wanted" director Timur Bekmambetov, who's making films in Russia.
The regime also put in place franchise building blocks that should pay off down the line.
They wooed Fox Animation topper Chris Meledandri to launch Illumination to put the studio firmly in the family-film game. Meledandri generates his first film next summer with the 3D animated Steve Carell starrer "Despicable Me," and is working on such promising follow-ups as "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax" and "Where's Waldo?"
An overall deal with Captivate gave them rights to continue the "Bourne" franchise and a first look at other thriller novels generated by Robert Ludlum, which led to the Ron Howard-directed "The Parsifal Mosaic."
But the exec team didn't have much luck. They made a deal to turn Guillermo del Toro into a star director, and then watched him sign on for a five-year commitment of directing two installments of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit."
They won a fevered auction for the British miniseries "State of Play" only to have Brad Pitt reject the script at the last moment. Faced with eating upward of $15 million and possibly suing Pitt, the execs instead paid Russell Crowe $20 million and made a film that left other studios shy about making adult dramas.
The Universal slate has no sure things on track, but has numerous projects that carry large pricetags including "Wolfman," "Robin Hood," "Cirque du Freak" and "The Green Zone," the latter a Paul Greengrass-Matt Damon collaboration that focuses on the battleground of Iraq, a genre that so far hasn't had a lot of luck with audiences.
It was not immediately clear where Shmuger and Linde go from here. Each signed a four-year extension not long ago, so they have plenty of time to absorb the blow.
Execs exiting at such high levels routinely pull back parachutes that make them producers on the lot, but several insiders cautioned that is no sure thing. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118009595.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&ref=bd_film
Oct 7 09 3:53 AM
stateside wrote: Can't explain why State of Play did not fair well, didn't see it but decided to wait until it hits DVD. I LOVED the original too much and not because of James. My main reason for seeing the series was to see Bill Nighy. He was fantastic in that. James was good but for me served as the "eye candy" of the series LOL! BTW - Helen, I don't know if you intended to post the entire article, but there are scroll bars in your post and it cuts the article off?
Oct 7 09 9:45 AM
Oct 8 09 5:42 PM
My wife and I are heading to London Thursday night. The impetus for the trip was in invitation from Fox to attend the London Film Festival premiere of Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The pitch, as I don't go on many of these trips, was that this would be the one and only opportunity to see the entire voice cast (Clooney, Steep, Murray, etc) together.
Even for that, a 10 hour plane flight just to see a movie and talk to the team - even that team - seemed a bit nutty. But we decided that a week in London, right before my wife is grounded for the duration of her pregnancy, was a nice idea. So we took the generous offer of airfare for me and a couple of hotel nights from the studio and I am paying for the rest of the nights, my wife's airfare, and whatever other costs are involved aside from the day trip to Roald Dahl's home (another big draw for me) and the festival tickets.
It's interesting that just before we go, there is this drama about "bloggers" and the FTC. Of course, any sane reading of the FTC's interest in this issue is about people who are getting computers and cars - Do you know how the car magazines choose their year's bests? I do... and it's ugly! - and iPhone-level toys. This notion that some out there have been kicking around that there is any quid pro quo expected when it comes to DVD release screeners is idiotic. The only thing studios get out of sending journalists promotional items is chatter - not always positive - about the promo items themselves.
James Rocchi wrote one of those "behind the scenes of the junket I am covering" pieces for MSN re: Couples Retreat's Tahiti junket. It brings up an interesting issue in that going on that junket is not really a choice that James or others can made.
I stopped going to all but one or two studio junkets a year because I am free to make that choice. On a movie like Couple's Retreat - assuming its general quality level from others, having not seen it - I have been known to pass on interviews, much less a trip to do them, after seeing a film. I passed on a few very high profile interviews in Toronto because i just couldn't smile my way through the conversation in order to score those actors for DP/30.
But I don't have an employer breathing down my neck to deliver page views or the kind of stuff they want to see in the paper or website. A part of James' annual income is based on going to junkets and talking to whatever big celebrity is there. And not liking the movie is not really an issue that the writer is allowed to indulge loudly. James: Junket Dude is not there to review the film. He's there to deliver content for MSN. And when James: The Critic does someday review the film, I am confident that he will speak his mind freely.
This doesn't mean that many writers - not just online, but in print and God knows, TV - do not assume the quid pro quo of it all without the studio saying a word... and not just for Tahiti junkets, but in any situation in which they can lay down for the studio and the talent and give it all up on cue. And again, in many case... That Is The Job.
A guy like Pete Hammond will tell you what he thinks privately... but it is his job through the awards season to be nice to everyone because his primary income comes from being paid nightly - often multiple times in the same night - to publicly interview the talent from these films. Pissing on the films in public just won't fly. He is doing his job.
If you know that any host on ET or Access or E! dislikes a film, they are NOT doing their job.
Anyway... I have never been shy about being 100% transparent about when studios pay for stuff. When I was with roughcut.com, a Time-Warner business, we took everything we could get... back when internet wasn't given much of anything. I did some set visits... but they were rarely worth much. (The last one was in 2005 for V for Vendetta.) When we started MCN, I was already dropping off the junket lists. I think the last time I took anything from a studio in connection to covering a movie was a 2 day trip to Lake Tahoe to talk to Joe Carnahan about Smokin' Aces. The studio couldn't have been nicer, I still am a Joe fan, and I realized that I had no business on those trips. I don't have a problem with those who go on them... but not my thing.
But you know... I'm very lucky. None of our writers or features on MCN are junket-driven, primarily because junkets are covered so extensively by so many other outlets. Why would we spend the man/woman hours duplicating that stuff?
The only travel I ever really accept is from a few film festivals each year. I am an active adviser to the Bermuda Film Festival and haven't really covered the festival as a festival in years. Seattle is a regular stop, but for years now, I have hosted an event or been on the jury, singing for my supper, as Anne Thompson says. (I even paid for extra room nights this year... willingly. Things are tough in FestWorld there these days.) San Francisco is usually good for a few hotel room nights and I usually pay for a number of extra days there. I may do 10-15 days a year at other fests that pay airfare and hotel, though I have done less and less of that. I spend a lot more covering fests than is ever paid for by fests.
Obviously, I get screeners during the award season and I get Blu-rays from all the studios, but most consistently from Sony and Disney. I am much more interested in covering Blu from the big picture perspective than from the individual films and you would be seeing a lot more content from each disc I get if the publicists who handle these companies had their druthers. But the wise folks at the two studios that send almost every title understand that they are feeding my Blu coverage, which is rare amongst writers who are not strictly reviewing Home Ent content. I don't get DVDs that aren't Blu-ray because that's not really the point. (Actually, some smaller companies send me stuff... but probably shouldn't. It rarely gets seen. I just don't have the time.)
Anyway... now you know what I take. I don't consider it breaking any rules. I don't think anyone can connect any review or coverage I have done across a career online of over a decade to any junket or "sample" in which I have ever indulged. Mostly this is because for years now, when I cover anything, it is because I have an interest, not because I am rolling along with the machinery. But again... I am very fortunate to be able to afford not to do things that don't interest me.
Onward... http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2009/10/heading_to_lond.html
Oct 14 09 4:45 PM
By JILL LAWLESS (AP) - 3 hours ago
LONDON - George Clooney and Meryl Streep were due on the red carpet in Leicester Square on Wednesday for the opening of the 53rd London Film Festival.
The stars provide voices for the lead characters in the opening-night film, the world premiere of director Wes Anderson's animated adventure "Fantastic Mr. Fox."
Anderson's stop-motion kid-flick is adapted from Roald Dahl's book about the battle between a suave, chicken-stealing fox and evil farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon and musician Jarvis Cocker also provide voices for the playfully lo-fi feature, which brings the hipster sensibility of Anderson's "Rushmore" and "Royal Tenenbaums" to Dahl's children's classic.
Although the film takes liberties with Dahl's story - giving Mr. Fox additional neighbors and family members - the filmmakers had the blessing of Dahl's widow Felicity. Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach even wrote the screenplay while staying at the Dahl family home in Great Missenden, southern England.
"Fantastic Mr. Fox" is released in Britain Oct. 23 and in the United States next month.
Clooney is a major presence at this year's festival, also playing a psychic researcher for the U.S. military in Grant Hestov's "The Men Who Stare at Goats" and a smooth management consultant in Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air."
One of the world's oldest film festivals, London is trying to raise its international profile to compete with better-known events in Cannes, Venice and Toronto. Most of the 300 films from almost 50 countries in the London lineup have been screened elsewhere, but 15 are world premieres.
The festival also plans to hand out a best-picture prize for the first time at an awards ceremony on Oct. 28.
The lineup includes Austrian director Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon," which won the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival; prison drama "A Prophet" from France's Jacques Audiard; Jane Campion's visually ravishing John Keats biopic "Bright Star"; "Steven Soderbergh's whistle-blower saga "The Informant"; designer Tom Ford's directorial debut "A Single Man"; and Lone Scherfig's "An Education," the Nick Hornby-scripted story about a teenager coming of age in the 1960s.
The festival wraps up Oct. 29 with the world premiere of "Nowhere Boy," a film about the young John Lennon directed by British artist Sam Taylor-Wood.
Oct 23 09 10:26 AM
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, at the DVD-by-mail company's Los Gatos, Calif., headquarters. He says he has discussed delayed-rental proposals with several of his biggest suppliers. (Noah Berger / Associated Press / January 24, 2007)
By Ben Fritz October 23, 2009
Oct 23 09 1:48 PM
Nov 6 09 6:17 PM
As some of you know, I have written a book called "Think Outside the Box Office." It's purpose is to help filmmakers release their films in today's marketplace - especially in the collapse of the festival acquisition model. The book is being released on November 16th. indieWIRE has offered to release a few advance chapters of the book to give a sense of what is inside. For the first week it seemed to make sense to release the introduction which explains why I wrote the book in the first place. I've also included the Table of Contents so please post a comment to this article and let us know which chapter you would like to see next. I'm also available on Twitter and Facebook where I post about distribution and marketing for filmmakers. You can sign up for a $5 off coupon for the book, on my website.
Think Outside The Box Office
Introduction
The independent film world is abuzz about the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. In recent years, more than 5,000 feature films have been submitted to the Sundance Film Festival annually, and only a few hundred get the golden ticket. Of those accepted, perhaps a handful at best will make a sale that might cover at least half of their production expenses. Another handful might be offered a 20-year deal for all rights to their film - with either a token advance of about $15,000 or no advance at all. No longer can filmmakers expect someone to come and take their film off their hands and guarantee them theatrical release and full recoupment. Any filmmaker who doesn't understand the current state of affairs is going to have a rude awakening.
I had my own rude awakening in 2007 when I brought my film Bomb It (a documentary about the global explosion of graffiti art and culture, and the resultant worldwide battle over public space) to the Tribeca Film Festival. We did our festival launch the old-school way:
o We saved our world premiere for a top U.S. film festival that had a history of acquisitions.
o We got a top-class sales agent to marshal the distribution world and get people excited about our film.
o No advance screeners went out to potential buyers.
o We paid a ton of money for a conventional publicist to get the film written up, so potential distributors would know that there was interest in our film.
o We spent more money on a variety of marketing efforts to get our audience into the theaters (the festival's theaters).
o We held off creating DVDs for sale so as not to compete with any potential distributor. And the results: Each of our five screenings (in 500- to 600-seat venues) was sold out. People lined up around the block; 100 to 200 people were turned away at each screening! The audiences were engaged in the film: People laughed in places that I didn't expect; there were eruptions of applause after the screenings and mobs of adoring fans.
And nothing in terms of sales. No overall deal with an advance that made any financial sense. We were offered extremely low money deals for theatrical and DVD, tied together so that we were sure that we would never see a dime. No television or cable. No foreign. 2007 was the tipping point in the collapse of the studio-based independent distribution model. We did get interest from a few DVD companies - however, none with any significant advance. What the F? The market had changed - drastically.
A week after Tribeca, our film was available for sale on Canal Street - as a bootleg.
We could have sold copies of our film to our enraptured audiences (2,500 people in the theaters, plus the 800 turned away). Converting just 10 percent of those 3,300 would have meant $6,600 in sales.
In short, we received a good, no advance deal from New Video, who also handle our download-to-own digital rights. The DVD was scheduled to be released at the end of May 2008. I was still committed to having a theatrical release. After an unfortunate sidestep with a company who said that they would release the film theatrically, I decided to do a theatrical release on my own, knowing that I had a very small window in which to do so, as determined by my DVD release. I started in January 2008 and ended the official theatrical at the end of June 2008 (note the crossover with the DVD release).
Part of the reason I wrote this book is because I wish I had had it before I released my film. Filmmakers are hungry for information on how to distribute and market their films. Many are shooting themselves in the foot in the process (like I did many times). While there are some disparate sources of information on these new methods, no single resource exists that combines all of the knowledge and tools now available to filmmakers.
Think Outside the Box Office is the first step in filling that void. It is a nuts-and-bolts guide for filmmakers who want to take control of their own destiny and create a strategy that works for their specific film. Each section and the chapters therein address an essential aspect of distribution and marketing and give specific techniques for independent filmmakers to release their films in today's marketplace. It is designed as a first step to develop a series of best practices for filmmakers and other visual media content creators wishing to distribute and market their work.
What I think is more important than a distribution and marketing manual, though, is that the book serves as a first step to reconceptualizing the way we think about creating and distributing visual media content throughout the world. Some of the most exciting techniques in here, such as transmedia, refer to a new way telling stories that a few forward-thinking filmmakers are already experimenting with. These new ways of storytelling will not only help filmmakers get their work out to new audiences, but will expand their creative horizons as well. This book is about connecting filmmakers with audiences and creating long-term relationships with them. It is about thinking outside the box in terms of form and content. It is about new storytelling techniques that make sense for new modes of distribution. It is about embracing the changes in our industry that are facing us all - and using them to spur new creativity.
My Hopes For The Book
My first hope is that the ideas and opinions expressed in this book will cause you to think differently about how you can connect your film to its audience.
My second hope is that you will then use this book to create a strategy to make your film (and career) a success, whatever you define that success to be.
My third hope is that the book contains the practical advice necessary to put that strategy into practice.
My fourth hope is that this book will help you see how new forms of storytelling, distribution, and marketing can expand your creative horizons.
-the table of contents for Reiss's book is available on the next page. please post a comment to suggest which chapter should be published next in indieWIRE-
Nov 6 09 6:27 PM
Dec 7 11 2:10 AM
The actress Halle Berry, center, took direction from Tom Tykwer on the set of the film “Cloud Atlas” in Glasgow in September.
From its truly global parentage to its time-bending story told by three directors using two separate production crews, the movie is unabashedly strange. The narrative, which starts near New Zealand and circles the globe, is bewildering in its complexity, featuring characters in six eras who might share a soul migrating through time. And the project’s primary backers are from China, Korea and Singapore.
But “Cloud Atlas,” in all its glorious confusion, also serves as a guidepost to the future of the film business. Increasingly, sophisticated filmmakers who once relied on American studios for backing are turning to a globe-straddling independent finance system for their most expensive projects.
“Cloud Atlas,” with its $100 million budget and high-wattage cast, including the Academy Award winners Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, was an epic independent film too complicated, too expensive and perhaps too risky for any conventional studio to have backed.
To move forward, the project broke free of national boundaries. The investors from Asia and beyond contributed roughly $35 million, without which the film could not have been made. German subsidies account for $18 million more. In the United States, “Cloud Atlas” will be distributed, probably next fall, by Warner Brothers, which has made only a modest investment to date.
In many ways, the producers are drawing a blueprint for a new era of genuinely international filmmaking.
“We were just looking for a way to get it done,” said Grant Hill, one of the “Cloud Atlas” producers, “but I think there’s the basis for a model there.” He called the final push for financing an “exotic mixture” of deals, adding, “What a studio would have had to pay would have made it impossible.”
The change has been coming for several years. In 2010, the international box office was up 30 percent over five years, twice the growth in domestic sales. And foreign sales accounted for roughly 70 percent of total receipts, both for the industry at large and for some of the biggest American studio productions like “Avatar.”
Meanwhile, the Oscar for best picture, for three consecutive years, has gone to films — “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Hurt Locker” and “The King’s Speech” — that used globe-spanning financial networks to create stories aimed at global audiences. Movies like these will simply make a stop on American theater screens as they travel around the world.
A peek at the back lot for “Cloud Atlas” testifies to the need for a budget that defies the term “indie.” Behind the yellow shipping containers that are part of the futuristic Korean set is a fine 19th-century sitting room with a rose-lined garden path outside the front door. The interior of an old tall ship shares the soundstage with the exterior of a space-age hovercraft and Styrofoam boulders.
The performers, meanwhile, shift between jarringly different roles. “The biggest change for me as an actor is to have two different film units and two different film crews and to go between the two from one day to the next,” Ms. Berry said in a phone conversation.
She described playing “a Jewish woman in the 1930s” for the third director, Tom Tykwer, then becoming “an old tribal woman” for the Wachowski siblings the next day, and losing track of fellow cast members amid the layers of makeup and costumes.
“Some days I go into the trailer, I’ll be having a conversation — I won’t even know it’s with Hugh Grant until five minutes in,” Ms. Berry said.
The gestation of “Cloud Atlas” is a winding tale of emerging markets and perseverance that breathed life into an unlikely project, which, if successful, will probably provoke more change in the business of filmmaking.
In 2005, while on the London set of “V for Vendetta,” the actress Natalie Portman gave a copy of “Cloud Atlas” to Lana Wachowski (formerly Larry), who became intrigued with the novel’s six obliquely connected stories.
A year later, Lana and her brother Andy surfaced with a screenplay. Mr. Tykwer, a friend of the Wachowskis — the directors declined interview requests — joined in writing the numerous drafts of the script, which were shared with the book’s author, David Mitchell.
“After two years of hard work, we were still about 30 percent short” of the necessary money, Mr. Hill said. “At that point you go home unless you can come up with something new, not part of the traditional model.”
Rather than giving up, the producers translated the screenplay into more than half a dozen Asian languages and found that the film’s treatment of reincarnation resonated with potential investors in the East.
“The theme of the story is rebirth, and it comes straight from the basic ideal of Buddhism,” said Michelle Park, chief executive of the Bloomage Company, a Korean film distributor. Ms. Park describes her company’s investment as “unusually high” by Korean standards.
Money came from the Singapore container ship magnate Tony Teo; the Hong Kong film distributor the Media Asia Group, which made what its chief executive, John Chong, called the company’s “largest ever investment in a Western production”; and Dreams of the Dragon, a Beijing film company that had not previously invested in a major film. One of its owners, Wilson Qiu, in an e-mail, cited his “fascination with the source material.”
Others also claim pride of authorship. “From our perspective, ‘Cloud Atlas’ is a German film,” said Christine Berg, project manager for the German Federal Film Fund. Not only are the country’s subsidies substantial, but Mr. Tykwer, who achieved fame with his Berlin film, “Run Lola Run,” is in charge of the second crew.
One advantage of having disparate financing, said Peter J. Dekom, a veteran entertainment lawyer, is that it gives filmmakers greater creative freedom. “The more investors you have, the less control you feel from any one investor,” he said.
The idea of shooting on parallel tracks, with the Wachowskis directing one unit and Mr. Tykwer the other, grew from a realization that the stars were more likely to work for a steep discount if the shoot could be finished in half the time. Actors also play different roles in different time periods, keeping them busy and, on certain days, turning stars into extras.
“It’s sort of like guerrilla filmmaking in a way,” Ms. Berry said. “Even though there seems like there’s a lot of money, it’s not opulent. All the money’s going into the screen.”
Still, such an unusual project presents hurdles in capturing a mainstream audience.
The Wachowskis brought in about $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office for Warner Brothers with the Matrix series. But their “Speed Racer,” also for Warner, was a high-budget flop in 2008. This time, Warner agreed to distribute the film in the United States but was not a large contributor to its production budget.
“To have taken the whole movie, given the expense, would have been a very risky proposition for us,” said Warner’s top film executive, Jeff Robinov. Whether it was smart business to jump in only part way, Mr. Robinov said, “I can’t tell you until we’ve seen more.”
The Wachowskis are notorious for their secrecy, but they showed six minutes of footage at the American Film Market in Santa Monica last month.
“It looks phantasmagorical,” said Victor Loewy, a seasoned international film distributor who bid on the United Kingdom rights after watching the clip. “It’s so unlike anything I’ve seen in 40 years in this business.”
Posts: 1379
Dec 7 11 11:44 PM
Helen, Thank you for that interesting article. You know I feel the same way about James as Robert Frobisher. I wanted him to do this film so badly, it was like the part of Frobisher was written for James to play. At least I got to read a really good book.
Dec 12 11 4:01 AM
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