Major theater chains took a bit of a hit on Wall Street as box office sales failed to match expectations or analyst predictions.
True, box office isn't living up what people want, but whose fault is it?
The studios perhaps?
They slashed their output, created ever growing gaps in the film market place, rammed the snake-oil of 3D down everyone's gullet, and seem intent on choking the whole superhero market to death with over-exposure.
But it's the theaters who get punished.
Why?
Because they are almost completely dependent on the major studios. The theaters can't sell their movies, even the stinkers, to television/home video/internet streaming like the studios, they can only make money from their share of the tickets, and the profits from the popcorn and soft drinks they sell at the snack counter.
That's why you have AMC and Regal starting Open Road to buy and distribute movies for their own screens, and the screens of their competitors. They have to, the studios are screwing them into the ground. I fully expect Open Road to either start their own production division, or buy a pre-existing production to start making as well as distributing movies. The studios worked very hard to suck the life out of independent films in the 90s, and 2000s, and it's in the theaters' best interests to do whatever they can to revive a commercially viable independent cinema for their own survival.
The studios just aren't doing their job, so it's time for someone else to do it.
-------------------
Just some random news bits...
BIG DEAL NEWS...
Open Road, the distributor founded by the AMC & Regal theater chains, is taking another big step in showing the world that they're serious about the movie biz. They've just inked a rental/streaming video deal with Netflix, starting with their first release The Killer Elite.
Good luck to them, I hope they give the big boys a run for their money.
BAD DEAL NEWS...
Stan Lee's Pow Entertainment is putting together a new consortium, this time called Magic Storm Entertainment, to finance new film franchises based on Stan Lee's new superhero ideas, and they're going to be specifically targeting China as a key market.
What does this tell us?
1. It doesn't matter if you hadn't had a successful or even appealing idea since the death of disco, you can still suck the life out of the legacy you created decades earlier. Especially if that legacy involved the creative talents of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and others, who are now looking more important than ever.
2. China will now see all new superhero characters loosely based on the menu at Stan Lee's favorite restaurant. I myself can't wait for General Tao to dispense hot spicy justice against the sinister Egg Roller.
3. Investors can't do any research, because how could they possibly go into business with people that thought Stripperella and The Governator were good superhero franchises.
GOOD COMICS NEWS...
Frank Miller's long awaited anti-terrorism comic book Holy Terror is finally coming out, thanks to the new Legendary Comics company, founded by indie financier Legendary Pictures.
In case you haven't heard of this long gestating project, it started as Frank Miller's response to the 9/11/2001 terror attacks. The original idea was for Batman to go after Al Qaeda with a vengeance. Now for a long time the project disappeared into the mists of controversy. Some said DC didn't want to ruffle any politically correct feathers, some say that Miller wasn't happy with the limitations that come from having Batman in the lead role, but all that doesn't really matter anymore.
The situation and the main character changed, from DC's Batman, to Frank Miller's new creation The Fixer.
Their next project will be a Fixer / General Tao crossover with Stan Lee.
The evidence of my theory that the major studios not living up to their responsibilities as producers of quality entertainment content are all around us.
1. New distributor Open Road has announced their first release, the Jason Statham, Robert DeNiro action thriller The Killer Elite.
If you haven read my previous posts about this company, Open Road is a movie acquisition and distribution company founded by rival movie theater mega-chains AMC and Regal Theaters. The reason they created the company is because there are too few releases from the major studios, too many stinkers among those releases that they can't afford clogging up their screens, and huge gaps forming in audiences targeted by those releases.
It's a risky move. It's expensive, and like I always say, and will say again, any idiot can make a film, but it takes a special kind of idiot to distribute one properly. But it's a necessary risk, because the theaters have been put into a corner and need a way out.
(Note this film is not a remake of the 1970s Sam Peckinpah action film The Killer Elite, starring James Caan and Robert Duvall, but an adaptation of Ranulph Fiennes novel The Feather Men, I'm just using the poster to mess with your head.)
2. Meanwhile, Legendary Pictures, co-financier of such blockbusters as The Dark Knight, is opening up a new joint venture with Chinese partners to be based in Hong Kong. The plan is to make English language movies that can be sold internationally. It goes along with their recent opening of a comic book company as part of their plan to wean themselves off their co-dependence on the studios, and eventually create and distribute their own content worldwide.
Why do they crave their independence when they have such a cushy position as Warner Bros's big partner in blockbusters?
Because when you're a content creator that isn't just another subdivision of a multinational, multi-national media conglomerate, like Legendary Pictures, you need to create said content in both quality, and quantity. In the ever expanding 500+ channel/internet download/streaming/direct beam into your brain universe having your own library to license out is the key to the prosperity of your company, and the bigger the library, the bigger the power you wield with such outlets.
They will not achieve that as the mere partner of a major movie studio. That's because major movie studios treat their partners the way a 350 lb bodybuilding lifer treats their 120 lb prison cellmate whose in for shoplifting. The partners usually carry the bulk of the risks, and get the least of the rewards. If they are going to survive, thrive, and have a viable future, they are forced to find their own path.
3. Even the major studios are feeling the pinch caused by the decline of quantity/quality decline in content. 20th Century Fox have recently laid off 22 from their home video division.
Why?
Because home video sales and rental figures are somewhere between piss poor and atrocious.
Why are the sales and rental figures so bad?
Because the recent output of the recent studios, while they may enjoy some luck at the box office, really don't garner the repeat home viewings the way their older "classic" films do. Folks might go for the giddy thrills of a big screen spectacle in a theater, but if said spectacle lacks the sort of story that makes people want to watch it again and again, it's going to gather dust on the warehouse shelf.
Now Fox has made a move to try to break out of the death spiral by starting a program looking for new writers with new ideas. However, the odds of them handling such a program successfully are somewhere between slim to none. To find the new writers and new ideas they desperately need they would have to take a big step out of their heavily insulated Axis of Ego comfort zone, and I just don't think they have the stones to take that step.
Open Road, the distributor started by theater chains AMC & Regal, is now filling their executive suites in preparation for their grand opening.
I wish them luck, they're going to need it. Film distribution is a tough business, and the studios and their conglomerated parents aren't going to be lending any helping hands. In fact, they will probably do whatever they can to hinder this project, because they don't take well to any competition.
Now I've offered advice to independent film companies, and potential distributors before. (Feel free to search through the archives for them.) But if there's one thing I love, it's flogging a dead horse, so here's some more advice.
1. READ THE SCRIPTS. I honestly didn't think this would be necessary, but apparently, a lot of people just don't read the damn scripts anymore. Now I know a lot of deals would be with people with films already in the can, but it's inevitable that you will eventually get involved in films before they're made, it's the nature of the beast. Please read what you're getting into before you jump in head first.
2. THE K.I.S.S. PRINCIPLE. That means that you must KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! The fashionable strategy when setting up a film company is to make things as complicated and convoluted as possible. That might be fine and dandy like sour candy when you're already a massive multimedia, multi-variant, multifarious, mega-conglomerate with more divisions than Zhukov, but when you're an independent distributor, it's more harm than good.
Remember the troubles of David Bergstein and his ThinkFilm debacle. The last thing you want are news media reports like this one about courts having business documents unsealed, then resealed, sparking all sorts of unpleasant talk that can only serve to make you look bad, whether you deserve it or not.
Such things always spring from unnecessary business complications whether you are actually guilty of doing anything wrong or not. If things are kept simple, then there are fewer things to screw everything up, and a lot fewer things you can get blamed for.
3. MAKE FRIENDS. I know I say this all the time, but bear with me. Theatrical releases are all well and good, but there are other markets. Chief among them are the forms of home video and television that have the same need for better product, in both quantity and quality, as the theater chains that are forced to become distributors. To crack that market you need friends. I'm talking NetFlix and independent cable channels and local broadcast stations. They're getting jerked around by the big studios too, both in terms of money, product, and these silly games with release windows. Develop partnerships, based on mutual enrichment over one-sided exploitation. Then you can create a new business model that can outperform the clanking wasteful, behemoth otherwise known as the major studios.
I hope someone finds this helpful.
