Explosions, battles, and a climactic hand-to-hand fight between hero and villain: these are the obligatory thrills of the Tentpole Film. But sometimes, for some of us, the real thrills come from outside the theater and inside the box-office.
James Cameron has once again blown past all the competition. Except himself. AVATAR is already the runner-up best-performing box-office earner of all time. In five weeks the “action/adventure/sci-fi” has earned $1.4 billion internationally. The defending champ, Cameron’s TITANIC, earned a total of $1.8 billion. But that was 16 weeks of theater revenue. In its first five weeks TITANIC earned (only) $550 million. This means that, barring an upset, AVATAR will raise the bar by the time it is half way through its theatrical run and claim a definitive victory.
James Cameron, director of TITANIC, will have to drink the bitter cup of defeat and hand the laurels over to… himself. But will this film earn him the Oscar for Best Picture as TITANIC did in 1997? If the Golden Globes are any indication (which they often are), it is a distinct possibility.
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John brings up a crucial discussion that is taking place throughout the entertainment industry between artists, producers, owners, distributors and consumers. There are many elements to the digital rights debate, but they boil down to two basic areas of contention: morality (as determined by law) and economics (as determined by self-interest).
John has suggested that the morality of so-called piracy has to do with the taker’s intention. “Am I trying to defraud the artist by copying this DVD?” Well, of course I’m not. I am trying to watch a movie for free, and I don’t know (or care) who gets burned. Most movies today are licensed for exclusive exploitation by studio distributors “in any and all media now known or hereafter devised throughout the universe in perpetuity,” etc, etc. So for all intents and purposes the artists are not the owners of their work (and they can afford to be ambivalent): the studio takes the hit. I won’t waste my tears on the fat cats, but stealing from Wal-Mart is still stealing. Let’s face it, the kid using bit torrent to download X-MEN on Pirate Bay is no Robin Hood.
The economic arguments are much more intriguing to me. Given that public self-esteem now accommodates piracy in the broad daylight of mainstream, how does this effect the production and distribution of good movies? Adversely. Distributors (who hold the purse-strings) are now only greenlighting films that will make a big opening-weekend boxoffice. Piracy is undercutting long theatrical runs (because the films leak early), and simply gutting the DVD market. And what kind of films slam-dunk opening weekend? Franchises and genre pictures. The veritable junk food of cinema. And don’t get me wrong, I love junk food as much as the next guy– but we can’t live on it.
My forecast has one similarity to John’s: the theater screening experience has to kick up its appeal. But I also predict that encryption technology and piracy-prevention will gain traction; compression technology will advance and consumers will begin to pay for access to streaming films (like Netflix‘s very successful online feature); the concept of owning a personal copy of a film will fade out and communal streaming libraries will fade in; piracy advocates will lose a few key legal battles and die slowly.
Even junk food costs money to produce, and there is no such thing as a free lunch.
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Everything about the entertainment industry is changing with the dizzying possibilities of web content distribution. The way films are financed is no exception to this industry upheaval.
So, the thousands of upstart young directors with shiny new video cameras and affordable digital editing suites are exploring every last possibility for raising money to produce their dream feature or calling-card short.
Up front, this is my conclusion and advice: Find a social cause to promote the film to a passionate niche. Focus on big donations from serious investors. A good place to start might be here?
What do you think?
The good news is that it is cheaper than ever to make a good quality movie. The bad news (for producers) is that the competition is tougher than ever.
Even experienced directors and producers are finding it increasingly hard to get funding. And once a film miraculously gets made, it faces nearly insurmountable competition at the marketing and distribution phases. A case in point:
This is a great post and commentary from 2 years ago about the challenge of distributing a film, even by an established director. He mentions Tom DeCillo’s Delirious with Steve Buscemi. It made a splash at Sundance and went to a few screens in NYC and LA… but at the end of the run, made less than half a million dollars. Out of exasperation, DeCillo wrote Roger Ebert. I’ve pasted one of his questions (from Ebert’s blog), and Ebert’s answer:
3. If a small film like “Delirious” is judged by its opening weekend gross for survival, what does that say about the state of U.S. independent film? In other words, if an independent film needs a big opening weekend to succeed, how does this make it different from a Hollywood film?
It says indies are being forced out by the Opening Weekend Syndrome. Indie films will rarely have big opening weekends because they don’t have the publicity machines to grind out press junkets, talk-show guest shots, celeb magazine profiles, big ad campaigns, and fast-food tie-ins. They need a chance to find an audience. “Chariots of Fire” (1981) opened in one theater, crept into two or three, tip-toed across the country, had great word of mouth, played for months, and won the Oscar. Today, it would have closed after that first theater. Here’s a hypothesis: Anyone reading this article is likely to enjoy a movie more if it doesn’t have free collectibles at McDonald’s.
This “Opening Weekend Syndrome” is simply the result of the industry protecting itself from all the competition. For a big budget film to recoup, it has to have big audiences, and this means bullying the low budget indie pics out of theaters with massive marketing campaigns and sweet distribution deals with the theater chains.
Sooo, is finding financing on the internet the way to go? I don’t think so. The chance of having a Chariots of Fire or My Big Fat Greek Wedding sleeper hit that creeps up in popularity by word of mouth is so slim that there’s a reason it’s hard to find funding. And if angel investors are skeptical of a film, why would lots of strangers on the internet contribute $20 bucks in microfinancing? Any investment is money that is parted with. I’ve seen scores of websites set up to sell “shares” in a film’s production. But there is a critical mass needed to produce and market a film. I wouldn’t give a dime to even a promising project, unless I knew that they were going to go big or go home.
Here are some examples of sites dedicated to finding money for indie productions.
However, there are lots of sites that had the great idea of facilitating microfunding of movie productions… and now they are defunct.
From talking with indie directors (most recently Leonardo DeFilipis, about his surprisingly successful film Therese), the best way to get money is to have a non-profit project that spreads a message.
A successful example of this is Playing for Change. I talked with the director and producers at Tribeca last summer, and their energy was infectious. There is definitely an advantage to producing a film with a social message that motivates people to contribute to a “movement.” Here’s an exerpt from their movie. It’s a fun idea, beautifully produced. No idea how much money it actually has made though.
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