OldBoy

for instance, i was having a discussion with my mom about Winter's Bone, i told her Jennifer Lawrence, really good movie. i loved it anyway. so she asked how come she never heard of it...

I said something to the effect like it was a small, independent movie with limited release, but that it won Sundance prizes.

she asked why don't they release it wide so they make as much money as possible?

I said i wasn't sure, but thought it might have to do with how much financing they have to release it. i really don't know.

So:
1. why don't they release it wide to make as much money as possible?
2. do these (independent and other) movies even want to make as much money as possible to "cash grab" so to speak or just release it for their art?

JCWBobC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_film

OldBoy

^ thanks, but a little still unclear and so much writing...

inri222

Don't get me wrong, I love Winter's Bone but :

The average Joe is not interested in watching something like Winter's Bone.
There is a limited audience and limited financing for that type of movie.

OldBoy

that sounds easy to understand, but why not release to as many to get as much?

JCWBobC

It's basically what you said about financing not being there for a wide release. If they release it small and it does good they can try to get a major studio to back them for a wide release.

I haven't read it in a long time and i'm sure things are different now but Spike, Mike, Slackers, and Dykes is a great book in the history of independent films and how hard it is/was to get financing for independent films.

OldBoy

interesting.

so what about these "cash grab" movies...which ones are they and have they no shame??

Troy Stiffler

Leave the term "cash grab" out of your reasoning regarding indie film distribution.

With independent film, you recover what money you can. Here's the general process...

1. No name production company starts up, and finds a few capital investors (similar to how Shark Tank works). If the production company can, it'll also pre-sell international rights to cover a big part of the budget. Someone in Spain will pay $xxx dollars, just based on the pre-production packet (script, stars, etc.). They pay very little. But you do it many times over, and you have your budget.

2. With that money (the capital investors and international rights sales), they produce the film (shoot, edit, release). If it's a movie with genuine appeal, it usually gets snatched up quickly by one of the larger indie film distributors (Fox Searchlight is one of the big ones, Magnet is one of the smaller ones). This happens at film markets or festivals. These companies generally pay the production company and purchase the film outright, or maybe with some "backend". The production company is happy, because they are small, and needed to pay off that $5M investment, plus interest.

2a. If the movie is a tiny turd, and nobody has the money to gamble on it, they'll pay a lot less, and release it "direct to video". If it's really a big turd, or doesn't have any appeal beyond the film festival crowds, it doesn't get purchased, the production studio goes bankrupt, and the capital investors aren't happy.

3. Now, for proper distribution. Your main question. It's all about betting safe. All films are risky. But you can't be too cavalier when dealing with these small films. The distributor bets on how much appeal the film will have, versus the advertising and distribution costs. If Winter's Bone cost $5M to make, they're not going to put it in 3000 theaters and do a heavy advertising campaign. That could put them in at $40M. They can profit off shipping it out to 500 smaller screens and paying for some general PR, trailers, etc. Then if it makes $7M, a $2M return on their investment is fair - and safe. They don't want the budget to balloon to $40M, and then have it make $20M, and then lose $20M on the film.

#3 is the reason why Kevin Smith experimented with Red State the way he did. Almost no costs, and he was able to retain rights and (presumably?) profit on the film. Otherwise, it would have sold to a regular distributor, had tons more money injected into it's advertising and distribution, and then been considered a "bomb". I forget how it turned out.

RichC2

I'm sure the movie theaters play a role in it as well. They don't want to show a movie that doesn't have a substantial advertising push behind it, and these days advertising seems to be matching the budgets of some larger movies.

It simply doesn't make a ton of sense to push a movie that may have limited appeal, spend 5x its budget on advertising and prints and potentially not make any money on it. If a indie flick does really well in its limited platform, it will expand. Take for instance a movie like Mud, it's critically acclaimed (98% on rotten tomatoes), generally well liked, has two big stars in it (Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon) and two actors most people recognize even if not by name (Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon). That movie received a wide release (960 theaters) and pulled in $21m on its $10m budget. It likely didn't break even in its theatrical release. This goes for The Place Beyond the Pines as well, which also went wide and pulled $21m on its $15m budget and had several known stars in it (Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta). The Way Way Back also flopped in wide release despite a strong limited release.

It's rare for an independent film to make a ton of money unless it's selling gimmick (Blair With Project, Paranormal Activity) or is simply a low budget mainstream movie in disguise (My Big Fat Greek Wedding).

DeanoBKN

It's such a shame too, because more often then not these small "independent" films are often among my favorite films of the year. I can't complain, because I'm lucky enough to live in an area where I can catch them all at the theater, but I just wish some of them attracted a larger audience.

Alan Smithee

Here in Sacramento, the "art" films have traditionally gotten exclusive showings at the Tower Theatre, which despite being within biking distance of my apartment I absolutely refuse to go to because it was a 1930s single-screen theater divided into thirds, and it's very sleazy on top of that (I worked there 20 years ago as a fill-in projectionist, only as a favor to someone. I used the money from that to buy my first laserdisc player, and the money the theater's owners took in went straight into their pockets rather than making any improvements.) It sucks that there are many new theaters each with more than ten screens but they're too booked up all playing the same movies with many on two or more screens at the same time to even devote ONE screen to the smaller films. I worked for nine years at a theater that played a good mix of the mainstream crap AND all the independent movies they could fit in, and most of the time the smaller movies were much more enjoyable than the big ones. You can just tell when a movie was made more for the purpose of making money than for anyone's love of the movie itself.

Matthew Chmiel

To add onto what others have been posting, independent films now have the ability to be released on multiple platforms rather than just get a brief theatrical release before their eventual run on video.

IFC Films, Magnolia Pictures (and Magnet Releasing), and The Weinstein Company (and Radius-TWC) have been some of the major players in giving their films a dual-release in theaters and on-demand through avenues like Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, and Vudu. Films they typically release usually aren't given wide theatrical releases due to whatever various releases (content, limited funding, etc.) can get an on-demand release to find an audience as well as make a profit for the studio.

Bachorlette, Only God Forgives, and The Human Centipede are just some examples of films that have made a profit during their on-demand release despite their theatrical outing being unsuccessful. Why pay more than $10 for a single ticket to watch The Human Centipede 2 in some shitty theater when you can pay less to watch it at home in 1080p HD on the same day? While I personally don't like the model (as I want to see films on a big screen), it still gives me the chance to see the movie right away rather than have to wait for the eventual video release that's months away.

Supermallet

It costs money to book a movie theater screen, especially for a movie that isn't guaranteed to make money. Theaters have schedulers who look at films and decide what should and should not play based on various demographics, all kinds of different statistics. It's not as easy as saying, "Oh hey, just play my movie for a few weeks, thanks!"

Also, for movies that a studio thinks has potential, they will often release them in limited theaters in an attempt to try and pack the per screen average. If you hear that a movie is sold out everywhere it's showing, you might want to check it out for yourself. You probably don't realize that only five screens are playing it, so there aren't many seats to sell before it's sold out.

RichC2

The large AMC and Regal cineplexes generally pick up the "bigger" indie flicks here, stuff like Fruitvale Station which is "limited" but not really (it's in several hundred theaters at least) gets shown at those locations, as well as anything with local ties. They tend to sell a little better than 4 week old movies.

This is actually kind of cool, as our local indie theater picks up more obscure stuff. IE - today's lineup is Blackfish, Computer Chess, Crystal Fairy and The Magical Cactus, and Stories We Tell.

The Bus

This is decided long before the movie is released:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/08/did-...office-friday/

dex14

I think this is one of the greatest things to help independent features. Sometimes they do get around to me in the theatre. Sometimes they don't. But normally I'm able to see them when they're limited for 7 bucks at home.

The Bus

And I still wonder why there isn't theater tiered pricing.

rw2516

I would imagine the cost of film prints is pretty high. If a movie caught on they could always make more prints. I could see a single print travelling from town to town. The original Halloween opened in only 3-4 markets. The Frozen Dead was shot in color but they didn't have enough money left for color prints so the movie was released in black and white.

Ash Ketchum

THE FROZEN DEAD is, like, 45 years old. The single print traveling from town to town is from the Andy Milligan/David Friedman/Oscar Micheaux days.

Besides, most films don't get shown on "prints" anymore, but on whatever it is they put into digital projectors (memory card? hard drive? disc?).

ben12

You're assuming it's free and cost-less to put a movie in lots of theaters. The theater would rather a movie be playing in that room that would sell more tickets.

dex14

Most are on hard drives these days. And are substantially cheaper to get out to theatres.

bluetoast

Check out this nice instructional video on DCPs!

https://digitalcinema.disney.com/dcIngestMov.aspx

Ash Ketchum

A lot of indie distributors try to arrange a theatrical release only in New York and L.A., simply so they can say it played in theaters and use the reviews (if favorable) to promote the release on other platforms (DVD, VOD, etc.) or to get it eligible for Oscar noms, if remotely possible. Most of the time, they barely make enough money on the NY/LA release to cover their costs. You can read the reviews in The New York Times every Friday. About a dozen indie films open every week, usually in venues like Cinema Village, IFC Center, Angelika, Sunshine and maybe one screen in the Village East multiplex, basically the only places where you can book an obscure indie film with any regularity. I suppose we should be grateful such places still exist in Manhattan. But these films tend to all sound and look alike and wind up blurring together in the public consciousness. Few have any real commercial potential. Every so often, one will leap away from the pack and get serious attention from critics, which might propel a larger release by the distributor. I can't think of any recent examples, though.

What bothers me is when films that would have definite commercial potential get treated like obscure indies. In late 2009, John Woo's RED CLIFF, a big-budget Chinese historical epic with name stars and spectacular battle scenes, opened at one or two tiny theaters in Manhattan, with very little advertising support. (Its distributor was Magnet.) It should have been given a wide release, with lots of advertising, and played at the largest multiplexes. I had to struggle to find a theater and showtime I could attend. And as I watched it, I kept thinking about how enthusiastically a Times Square crowd would have reacted to certain scenes. I'm still angry about not being allowed that opportunity. Zhang Yimou's HERO, on the other hand, was arguably less "commercial" than RED CLIFF yet it got a wide release and did very well. I saw it on opening night with a packed, very respectful audience at a 42nd Street multiplex. If HERO could do it, why not RED CLIFF?

EddieMoney

No explosions, no sale!

rocket1312

Hero was capitalizing on the U.S.'s early 2000's interest in Asian martial arts films, featured Jet Li who is the probably the third most popular Chinese actor of all time in the U.S. after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan (it also featured Donnie Yen, who is more well known than anyone in Red Cliff), was directed by critical darling Zhang Yimou, had the honor of being "presented by" Quentin Tarantino and being distributed by Miramax, and wasn't a 148 minute edited version of 2 140 minute movies. I'm not at all surprised that Red Cliff didn't have the same success.