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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Distribution On The Slow Roll

(500) Days of Summer is doing nicely in its expansion, but not shockingly. It passed previous 2009 top indie slow-roller-outer Sunshine Cleaning as well as the still-in-the-fight The Hurt Locker. Still, Searchlight took a little Sundance movie with mixed reviews and built that thing into a $30m to $35m domestic cash machine.
But please note… 500 Days is rolling out twice as fast as Napoleon Dynamite (dom gross – $44.5m) did 5 summers ago. And while no indie tried this approach last summer to a gross over over $6.5 million. (Brideshead Revisited – $6.4m dom, never over 501 screens).
This summer, we have a parade of these higher-profile efforts to build and roll-out, which seems to me to be reflective of the current distribution climate.
There have been 29 films released this year on 30 screens or less that have grossed $500,000 or more. From the biggest distributors, there have been 7 from Sony Classics, 4 each from Magnolia and IFC, 2 each from Focus and Summit, and 1 each from Fox Searchlight and Overture.
There have been 8 from small indies (or essentially self-distribution), the most successful being the 42West-driven Is Anybody There? with $2 million. From that group, the widest expansion is IAT?

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20 Responses to “Distribution On The Slow Roll”

  1. Joe Leydon says:

    It seems to me that there are so many variables at play here that almost any theory could easily be persuasively argued, and could just as easily be picked apart. Specifically:
    The Hurt Locker could have made more money with a less WTF title.
    Summer Hours actually over-perfomred, considering that, outside of the more discerning art-house devotees, no one in the US has heard of Olivier Assayas.
    We’ll never know with certainly just how much it helped the final gross, but Michael Caine’s high visibility in the last two Batman movies helped Is Anybody There?
    More people than you might suspect have no idea they have access to VOD movies. Seriously: they never check out all the stuff they have available on their cable menu. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say many if not most people who have the Retro movie channel don’t know they have it.

  2. Wrecktum says:

    It’s funny (or maybe sad?) that Poland can write a detailed summary of indie grosses this summer and the word “Miramax” isn’t mentioned once. How the mighty have fallen?

  3. Joe Leydon says:

    Wrecktum: Talk about sad — a movie by Woody Allen never expanded beyond 353 screens at one time. Of course, having said that, I’d have to go back and check to see how many screens some of his other recent films have claimed.

  4. Hunter Tremayne says:

    Joe, I really think the audience for that Michael Caine picture knew who he was before he made Batman Begins.

  5. David Poland says:

    Actually, I don’t think any of those ideas can be very persuasively argued, Joe.
    Hurt Locker has done as well as any movie could with the limited marketing dollars. You want to blame the title? You mean, like Slumdog Millionaire? Or (500) Days of Summer being so different from Summer Hours?
    The foreign argument for Summer Hours is that it did the business that is out there for those movies… period. Great reviews and limited competition made that relatively small number viable. What is a little shocking for me is that anyone would try to argue that $1.6 million is an “over-performance.” It’s about the same as Rudo Y Cursi and half of The Class. Did anyone know that Rudi y Cursi was the first American release as a director for Carlos Cuar

  6. Chucky in Jersey says:

    @Wrecktum: Miramax released “Cheri” this summer with half-assed promotion. When the trailer and print ads refer to “Academy Award Nominee Michelle Pfeiffer” the film becomes a Must to Avoid.

  7. anghus says:

    If they had films like Hurt Locker, 500 Days of Summer, Thirst, etc. on VOD, i’d pay to see them all. Especially living in a town where indepdent films show up for 1 week runs, if at all.

  8. LYT says:

    If Hurt Locker had had a major star in it, I think it could have been hugely commercial.
    Also if it hadn’t come on the heels of lots of really boring Iraq movies.

  9. IOIOIOI says:

    Jeremy Renner should already be a major star. The dude should freakin be Cap. I could care less if he’s 5’11! CAP… NOW!

  10. LYT says:

    I think this’ll put him well on the way. Industry people have seen it even if the masses haven’t.
    Look at the way HUNGER’s Michael Fassbender seems to be in every other movie now.

  11. Joe Leydon says:

    Michael Caine is my favorite film actor. Of all time. I have been paying first-run admission prices to see his movies since before most people on this blog were born. And even I have no trouble believing that there are millions upon millions of moviegoers out there who are familiar with Michael Caine only — or, at the very least, almost exclusively — because of the Batman movies. (When GQ magazine — not Details, but GQ — ran an interview with him last year, the editors felt compelled to use this tagline: “Batman’s Michael Caine.” No, I’m not making that up.) Thus, I think Caine’s exposure in the Batman movies helped — not immensely, but at least slightly — the box-office for Is Anybody There? I think some people — again, not millions, but certainly thousands — went because they were introduced to Caine in the Batman movies. I think others were reminded of Caine by the Batman movies — and/or by the interviews he did for the Batman movies, and/or by the interviews he did for Is Anybody There that were assigned by editors who were reminded of Caine because of the Batman movies — and they laid their money down, too. Yes, I believe Caine’s involvement with the Batman movies helped Is Anybody There? There’s nothing like being involved in a popular movie to help you gain attention for your next project, however different it might be. As Ralph Fiennes told me years ago: Because he was in Maid in Manhattan, an unusually large number of young women flocked to see him in a London stage production of Brand. Go figure.
    Yes, I think Summer Hours over-performed. And I’m happy it did. Assayas did a lot of interviews for that film, and I would imagine that helped elevate the movie’s profile. I can only wonder if the movie would have gotten any US play at all had it been the first feature by an unknown. I can only wonder if any many US journalists would have interviewed this unknown director. I am pleasantly surprised Summer Hours did as well as it did.
    I think The Hurt Locker would have sold a lot more tickets had it been called Bomb Squad instead. Back in the 1970s, that’s what it would have been retitled before airing on network TV. Just like Robert Aldrich’s Too Late the Hero was renamed Suicide Run before it aired on ABC.
    “As for VOD, where do you think I said people don’t have access to it?” I don’t know, David. Where do you think I said that you said this? All I said was: Many people who have it likely don’t know that they have it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens after a significant number of these folks are eduacted. For example: The Houston Chronicle weekly TV book recently ran a cover story on World’s Greatest Dad, pointing out how the movie would be available on VOD weeks before the movie opens in theaters. I would be curious to see what, if any, effect that will have on the movie’s box-office performance in Houston.

  12. Wrecktum says:

    “When the trailer and print ads refer to “Academy Award Nominee Michelle Pfeiffer” the film becomes a Must to Avoid.”
    For you alone.

  13. EthanG says:

    Wow is it me, or are people really really desperate for an indie hit..and looking to a film that won’t match “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” from last summer as a platform release as the best savior? Yes I know that film didn’t have exactly the best release pattern…
    but 500 Days even isn’t going to have the box office run of “Thank You for Smoking,” from a few years back, in the magical indie year of Little Miss Sunshine, Inconvienient Truth and The Illusionist.
    The Illusionist made almost $40 million after starting in August…and hasn’t had nearly as much ink spilled on it to this day as 500 Days has in 3 months regarding its box office. All this thrashing and moaning for an indie breakout needs to stop…it will happen, once the right film comes along. Look at “Juno,” which opened after a summer in which critics declared the platform release a thing of the past…

  14. IOIOIOI says:

    This is why Ethan needs to post more, he brings up the Illusionist.
    Very nice share, Joe.

  15. EthanG says:

    I’m not trying to be completely dismissive here…but Imagine if “Thank You for Smoking” or even the 20 million indie grosser “Amazing Grace” came along now. Critics are craving that indie box office breakout at all costs haha.
    Films like “The Illusionist” would be heralded as SMASHES in this climate…it’s just pathetic. Indies will be fine…they need the right movies though. Good but not great rom-dramedies aren’t going to cut it folks…and we all wish Iraq War movies could. But they can’t. Hasn’t anyone learned that in the last 4 years? Hurt Locker hasnt had a failure of marketing…au contraire it’s done as well as it could.

  16. IOIOIOI says:

    Again… Ethan G should post more.

  17. Hallick says:

    “Hurt Locker hasnt had a failure of marketing…au contraire it’s done as well as it could.”
    Surely, by the sum of reports from critics and filmgoers, The Hurt Locker should have been the sleeper event of the summer; but what happened instead was a virtual stillbirthing in the theaters. If that isn’t a failure of marketing, I don’t know what is.

  18. EthanG says:

    Really? Ever heard of Rendition, Lions For Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Stop Loss, Grace is Gone, Battle for Haditha, Harsh Times, The Lucky Ones, or Redacted?
    I would say “Locker” is the best of these films, along with “Elah” and I agree with Joe that naming it something like Bomb Squad might succeed somewhat. But break it past 15 million? That would never happen Period. “Ellah” had just as good reviews…at least acting wise…with a better distributor..and nothing. Americans just don’t want this genre.

  19. Joe Leydon says:

    Again, don’t know if this pertains to today, but: During the US involvement in Vietnam, there was only one major studio production released that dealt with US forces fighting in Vietnam: The Green Berets. It was a money maker. It was, for all practical purposes, an upbeat film. All the great Vietnam War movies came years after the fact.

  20. I was reading another blog the other day and the topic of the day was TimeCode, Mike Figgis’ quadrant film from 2000. I mentioned that in it’s brief five week run it made a smidge over $1mil. Today The Girlfriend Experience (comparing them basically because they’re digital, experimental and “cool” by respected directors) has been out for 11 weeks and hasn’t even made $700,000. I am sure there are any number of different reasons for that being, but make of the numbers as you will.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon