By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Intelligence Agency: ICM Rep Packages New Lumet Film For Studios That Cannot Be Bothered
A loyal reader well-acquainted with my eyelash-fluttering history with director Sidney Lumet alerts me to the latest about his new project, the New York-based crime drama Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. And although Hollywood Reporter stalwart Martin Grove does not really have the details you may be seeking vis a vis the plot (hand clap for IMDB), he does provide a fairly engrossing account of how A) Lumet maneuvered his interagency contacts to assemble a dynamite ensemble cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei and B) such packages comprise farm teams for studios too overextended with tentpoles to develop their own projects:
With Dead, for instance, none of the film’s principal stars is an ICM client, but director Sidney Lumet … is represented by ICM. “Jeff Berg has represented Sidney Lumet for many, many years,” (ICM exec Hal) Sadoff said. “Sidney wanted to do this project. (Co-producer) Michael Cerenzie developed the film for several years and came to us to help put it together and find a financier for it. We were able to help close all the actor deals. We were able to bringing in financing and it’s going to shoot in about four weeks in New York.” …
Looking ahead, Sadoff is encouraged about the prospects for packaging: “The industry is in a state of change and it’s more common to have these independent movies financed outside of the studio system. I think you will (see more of this in the future). We don’t have a set number (of films to package annually), but we’re continuing to build a team and it’s a very important part of the agency going forward and I think it’s an important part of the industry. You know, the studios are co-financing movies (with various funds and private equity investors). Almost every film on their slate is co-financed today.
I guess the overriding question is how much more exclusive this makes the independent film market in the long run. If Fox Searchlight or Paramount Vantage or Picturehouse can drop $7 or $8 million on the next Lumet or P.T. Anderson or Sofia Coppola picture (among God knows how many others) without getting its hands dirty with actual development or even P&A in some cases, how long before the mini-major industry outsources the bulk of its content this way? How long before it trickles down to the festival circuit, where independently financed (and crafted) work with A-list stars budgeted at $10-$15 million vie for premieres and dominate transactions everywhere from Toronto to Tribeca? Will a distributor like Focus take a chance on something like Brick if it can wait and see how it likes advance footage of John Waters’s new film?
Of course, the directors have to want to play ball, but it’s an obvious win-win if they can work without studio meddling while distributors can just shop for finished projects year-round. The losers are potentially the little guys who will still land Sundance berths–Stephanie Daley, Writscutters: A Love Story, The Talent Given Us–but face a messy self-distribution climate spearheaded by Netflix, Truly Indie and, before you know it, iTunes. At any rate, wherever Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead lands, rest assured that Yari Film Group will not be beating Lumet’s work within an inch of its life this time around.