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December 03, 2008

The Mythologies Of The Month

Okay… I am about sick of…

The WGA Strike Changed This Award Season
and
The Indie Shut Downs Might Change This Award Season

Neither the WGA Strike or the Indie Shut Down has had any palpable effect on this year’s award season, except, perhaps, to get in the way of one or two movies of potential (max) and to lead, somewhat indirectly, to a significant reduction in expenditures around the award season.

There is a story here… but it’s a year too early.

I believe that the strike atmosphere, much more so than the strike, led to a lot of the cutbacks we have seen from the studios. Of course, the overall economy and the fact that half of the six majors (are we counting MGM these days?) are owned by conglomerates for whom the film and television industry are not their primary business and that the other three have had great success from the corporate mindset built for minimizing risk is certainly the bigger issue. But the strike mentality led, I feel, to these risk-averse corporations looking at the machinery around specialized films and wondering why it was worth the investment, as the upside was so low. (Paramount was a one-of-a-kind situation.)

But if you look at The Awards Season, you see very much the same situation as in recent years past. Lots of Studio Dependents, a couple of majors, and no serious contenders from legitimate indies. This has not been a great year for overall quality of film, in my opinion, but almost nothing we are seeing this year started production or certainly active development during or just before the WGA strike. And the indie film cycle really starts with Sundance… and all of that was in post well before the WGA strike.

If you look carefully at the Dependent business, the situation at Fox Searchlight, pre-August, with a very, very light release schedule, even for them in a down year, may have been partially laid at the strike’s door. But probably not too much. Focus has had a full fall schedule with some big movies. Sony Classics is primarily an acquisitions company and has actually reaped the rewards of the competition slowing, eating Cannes alive this year. Miramax has had a pretty full schedule of 8 films with Doubt still on the way and prestige product from Mike Leigh and Fernando Meirelles.

And though they have been, essentially, shut down, both Warner Independent and Paramount Vantage are major players in this year’s award season. WIP’s Slumdog Millionaire is likely to be the division’s second BP nominee in its five years, even though it is now being release by Searchlight. And Vantage is in the game with Revolutionary Road, Defiance, the near-dead The Duchess, and even the missed-the-short-list American Teen. (And don't forget the pushed-to-2009 The Soloist.)

All that said, the future of the indie world will look very different indeed than the one we have experienced over the last decade. And I can’t say that I know what it will look like when it settles. We are all guessing.

For starters, there is the festival cycle.

Then, the pick ups. You can expect 10 - 15 pick-ups by Sony Classics every year, not all of which will get a proper theatrical and very few of which will see more than $1 million from the company upon the U.S. theatrical and DVD rights sale. Searchlight and Focus will pick up 2 or 3 apiece annually, for more money, with more likely aggressive distribution. And that’s that. 20 slots for Dependent buys… maybe.

The next tier of distributors is where it gets really blurry. There are bigger players and smaller players. There are companies that pay on time and companies that never seem to want to pay. And theatrical distribution beyond 3 or 4 screens is a question mark at virtually every one of these companies.

The next layer – and where I think the most action will be, as there is the most room for product – is the V.O.D., downloading, direct-to-Secondary-Platforms business. And what has not emerged as of yet is a business or even a business model that can turn this effort into significant enough revenues to return a production investment back to filmmakers, much less turn a profit for everyone involved.

The Indie Spirits reach a little more widely than The Oscars, but they are still living in the current/soon-to-die paradigm. They are still, ultimately, about television and even the lower profile films they embrace are films that have the highest profile from festivals and the sub-Dependent distributors. This is not to say that there is a lot of great stuff being missed, though there is surely some. But we are feeling the problems with the old paradigm now, as exhibited by the Indie Spirit nods yesterday.

Back to the studios…

Amongst the top contenders, going into this month, you have two very expensive films from Baz Luhrmann and David Fincher, two Eastwoods, a Ron Howard, Disney pushing their Pixar film, and a dark horse from Will Smith. How much more were you expecting?

Same as it ever was.

Posted by dpoland at December 3, 2008 11:53 AM

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