About Business and Distribution Nowadays

Hollywood is certainly one of the most extravagant, artificial, exciting and unpredictable industries in the world. Every day, hundreds of meetings between producers, directors, writers and studio executives take place all over the country in order to bring a project to life. Making a film is certainly a similar process like opening a new business in town. You need to hire the right people to help you bring your vision to life, you need to advertise it, promote it, sell it and most importantly; convince everybody to come over and purchase something from the business. In the film industry ticket sales used to be the only way where films could make a profit or hopefully at least break even when the movie wasn’t as successful as planned. It was until Star Wars changed the game in the industry by also taking advantage of its merchandising and licensing deals that made producers realize the great horizons that big blockbusters could be capable of reaching. Nowadays the distribution and sales game in movies has expanded and has become broader to the point where studios can release films simultaneously at the theaters, stores (DVD’s) and on the internet through our various well known Video On Demand platforms. In fact, a lot of new companies through out the last few years have become incredibly powerful and self sustainable (Netflix, Hulu,etc) to the point where they are not only distributors or VOD platforms, but they are also able to produce and distribute their own content without having to reach for a third party in order to promote their new projects.

It is clear that having a built in audience is certainly what a lot of producers hope whenever they put their hands on a project that is about to go into production. Star Wars, The Hunger Games and Harry Potter are just a few good examples of the importance of having a built in audience that will consume anything with the name of the brand on it, including a film. As I previously talked about the new strategies that studios use with all the franchises that exist, it is clear that the markets have become very stable for the biggest studios that have been blasting the audiences with continuous sequels and other related films in order to increase the number of franchises and hopefully see good results reflected in their Box Office numbers. As an example, it is clear that the purchase of Lucas Film done by Disney back in 2012 was another solid move from the studio in an effort to combine a business strategy with an entertaining and long-time creative vision from CEO Robert Iger. Studios nowadays are making tremendous efforts to secure what could become the new franchises all the way from novels, scripts and other pitch ideas taking place in the industry.

Bob Iger posing with the Millennium Falcon. (Photo By Fortune)

 In the other hand we also have the independent films and their filmmakers, who strive to make the best deals with other bigger distributors in order to improve and hopefully expand the number of outlets for the total revenue of the film. “Little Miss Sunshine” is an example of this. The film was bought by Fox Searchlight when it was exhibited at the SundanceFilm Festival. With a budget of only $8 million, the film went on to make around $60 million only in domestic theaters. This is certainly another reality of this amazing industry where even the smallest film might always have a chance to attract distributors and become a winner in the blink of an eye.

The "Franchisetic Formula" In Hollywood.

A franchise is an intellectual property that through out the involvement of some characters, settings and different trademarks taken from an original work, is used or adapted into visual, audio and tangible content such as films, tv series, shows, etc. When it comes to planning and creating a franchise there is usually a rule of thumb that dictates that the bigger the franchise, the bigger the names of the stars that will have to be part of the cast of such project. However, there is also another rule that points out the importance of bringing equally talented individuals to take over the planning, logistics and other important creative decisions and input for the project. The director, cinematographer, producer and people of this nature are brought on board of these projects in order to intensify and increase the dimensions of success that the project could potentially reach. 

                                                                                             

           

There is usually a continuos battle in the industry where studios have tried to focus a lot in securing deals and auctioning the rights to adapt several books and novels into screenplays that could potentially become blockbusters and gold mines for the companies. Franchise is a great word in the film industry nowadays, specially when it comes down to talking about gross sales and box office numbers. Just this year Furious 7, one of the most anticipated films of the year broke an unprecedented record at the box office making $1 billion in the first 17 days after the film was released back in April 3. Also, Jurassic World, another film from the worldwide known franchise Jurassic Park owned by Universal studios had the most amazing performance at the box office in Universal's history raising over $1.6 billion worldwide. Taking into account the fact that both films had a production budget of $190 million and $150 respectively, it is safe to say that the return on investment for Universal this year was historic. James Bond, Harry Potter, Pirates Of the Caribbean, Star Wars Transformers, Batman and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are just a few other examples of this elite group of billion dollar franchises in the film industry.

We are currently facing a period of time where studios have been exploring and sometimes overusing this "fantastic" formula, where there is no need to create original content anymore, and all it takes to drive audiences to the theaters is to either reboot the content from previous films or purchase distribution rights from other key franchises once they finish their respective deals with other studios. However this method of generating massive revenue for studios is not beneficial for everybody since a lot of studios slowly push away the chances and opportunities for other filmmakers with original scripts to produce their stories. At the end of the day this is a business and it takes place in a competitive industry suffering the consequences of not taking any risks on other type of projects and therefore, becoming more dependent on a formula that even though it works perfectly fine at the moment, it might not last forever. 

Theatrical And Digital Distribution Join Forces For the First Time.

Paramount Pictures has taken the first step to what could eventually become an unprecedented event in the film industry. And this has been done through out a new distribution strategy leaded by Paramount’s CEO Brad Grey. The business model involves two upcoming films from the studio. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (October 23) and Scouts Guide To TheZombie Apocalypse (October 30).

                                                                               

                                                               

This new approach has brought together different points of view as well as benefits to three parties: the film studio, the exhibitors and the consumers. The idea basically consists in releasing both films theatrically as it is usually done. Eventually, 17 days after each film has been brought down to 300 domestic theaters they will be automatically released on several home video platforms in order to optimize the viewing spaces for both movies and keeping track of other revenue sources while the films are still showing in less theaters. AMC and Cineplex will still receive an undisclosed percentage of Paramount’s digital revenues for the period ending 90 days after the films were first released. The amount should be proportional to the gross share of the theatrical market.

From Grey’s point of view this clearly represents a new approach that will certainly benefit all parts involved.  “Movie-lovers wantus to respond and meet their desires, exhibitors want to keep their businessesstrong. Filmmakers want us to implement new ideas on the theatrical experienceand optimize the consumer access to their projects. Our hope and intent is thatthis initiative offers a degree of innovation that benefits all parties”.

Paramount Pictures CEO Brad Grey.

Paramount Worldwide Distribution and Marketing President Megan Colligan has also stated that this new method could allow them to fight back in reducing the piracy window that films create once they are out on theaters.  “This strategy is modular and allows us to engage with consumersthroughout the lifecycle of our films to meet their needs and reduce the piracywindow.”

In the other hand AMC Theaters CEO Gerry Lopez recently declared that this new deal with Paramount, “Aligns the interests of consumer,filmmakers and exhibitors to maximize the theatrical experience first and then enable legitimate digital access”.

And last but not least, Patrick Corcoran, spokesman from The National Association of Theatre Owners said, “ For severalyears we’ve been asking studios to work with exhibitors on new models that growthe pie. We’re glad Paramount has reached out to theaters.”

It seems like this new business model could be a game changer move in the film industry. The idea still has to be tested and the revenue will definitely determine whether or not the new model brings something new to the table. There are a couple of things I’m curious about this new approach that the studio is having. How did they determine “300” as the minimum number of screens to finally release the films on digital platforms?  Could this incentivize audiences to attend more to the theaters and appreciate a little more the theatrical experience that they offer? Is this the end of theatrical releases? Could this mean that the VOD market has taken one step closer to crushing the theaters? Will movie studios continue to do this even with bigger films, such as blockbusters? Which other studios will join the party?

In the end a lot of questions can be asked but we will get a better answer by October of this year when this test finally takes place with the release of both films. At the end of the day the film industry is also a business, and even though this could represent a new beginning for other revenue strategies and sources for studios, this could eventually lead to the end of theaters or perhaps bring back the experience and excitement that audiences have lost in the last few years to go and see movies at the theater (specially with the great quality that TV is producing nowadays), instead of waiting for them to be released on stores or digital platforms.

IMAX, the ultimate experience on Filmmaking.

Every filmmaker has his own way of presenting his stories to the audience. There are different groups of filmmakers in the industry that can be differentiated based on the artistic and professional preferences that they share in common. Some directors like to work with very famous artists in order to attract more audience members to watch the film. Other directors or producers like to work for big studios, securing big budgets and shooting the ultimate blockbuster films. We also have the group of the independent filmmakers, the ones that threat carefully when it comes to developing their scripts, the ones who fight to the end in order to secure an actor or actress to lead their film, or even the ones who will almost sell their assets in order to bring their vision to life, after all, money is a priority when it comes to making a film a reality.

Even though there's always been a debate around the idea that most filmmakers like to shoot on film, rather than digital..there is a very particular and selective group of people who enjoy shooting their movies with IMAX cameras. Richard Gendolf is the CEO of the IMAX company, and it's been since 1994 that he became heavily involved in the film industry by coming up with this amazing technology that has enchanted the minds and the creativity of several filmmakers. Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird are some of the names of recognized filmmakers who adore to shoot in this format. They believe that the experience that it brings to their stories is incomparable to anything else in the industry.

Richard Gelfond, IMAX CEO.

Unfortunately, this is a very expensive format to shoot on. Some of the latest films that have used this "shooting" technique are "Interstellar, Star Wars Episode VII (coming soon), Fantastic 4 (coming soon), Jurassic World, etc. This only proves how big the budget of a film must be in order to be able to shoot in such a large format. Most feature films in the industry are shot in 35mm format, and all of the above mentioned are projects that surpassed a $50 million budget. The IMAX format is well known to producers because of the great revenues that generates most of the time for the studios. It is clearly another good way of making more money from the movie, in fact, a lot of blockbusters are now converted now a days from a smaller format to an IMAX one in order to expand the number of theaters where the movie will be shown at. 

Christopher Nolan on the set of Interstellar.

JJ Abrams on the set of Star Wars Episode VII.

              

Recently Richard Gendolf, the IMAX CEO talked to deadline.com about the new frontiers that IMAX is rapidly expanding and making it's way through, one of them being television. More specifically, he talked a little bit about the recent collaboration between IMAX and the famous TV series Game Of Thrones.

"The whole thing is you really have to have production value, which Game of Thrones had so it looked fantastic on the Imax screen. I don’t think you’ll ever see a game show in Imax. It has to be the right property. It has to have Imax DNA in it, which Game of Thrones did, meaning a similar kind of fan base and passion." 

All in all, I think it's fair to say that IMAX has certainly added a huge creative asset to the filmmaking world. Having the advantage of bringing this experience to the audiences is certainly a big success for the film industry as a whole. Certainly it is a great tool for the filmmakers and studios to create a win-win situation, in one hand it allows the artist to bring his vision to life and in the other end the studio opens up it's revenue sources.

Producer John Lesher puts on the superhero suit to produce "Birdman".

The film industry is certainly full of talented people. Most of the time, we tend to admire and pay more attention to the people that have been in the business for several years. While others working on less projects but with the same amount of passion and ambition tend to prove once again that in order to belong to this industry you need to make your work talk for yourself. 

John Lesher at the Critics Choice Awards.

John Lesher is certainly becoming one of Hollywood’s most creative and ambitious producers. With only eight IMDB credits as part of his resume, he has raised the bar this past year by being part of two of the most acclaimed films of the year. The first one is a World War II film called “Fury”, which presents the story of a Sherman tank crew during the war. Several critics and magazines have acclaimed the film with different but very complementing comments, even comparing it with “Saving Private Ryan”, Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece.

Recently, Lesher teamed up with Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu in order to bring to life a movie called “Birdman”. The film talks about the life of an actor who once played an iconic superhero and battles against his ego and his past in order to recover his career, his family, and himself in the days before the opening of a Broadway play.

John Lesher, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, Michael Keaton, Alexander Dinelaris and Jon Hamm at the Gotham Awards. 

In a recent interview, Lesher talked about some of the challenges that represented to shoot the movie in a city like New York.

The movie essentially takes place in a Broadway theater—on the stage and in the dressing rooms and the hallways. We tried to keep our footprint small, but then use our location in Times Square as our base camp to sneak outside.

Lesher explains that without the support of New Regency, Searchlight and Worldview Entertainment the film would have become almost impossible to be financed.

Whenever you’re trying to do something that someone hasn’t done before, it’s challenging. We kept saying that we’re going to put this incredible ensemble together, but until you actually do that, it’s sometimes difficult for people to take that leap of faith.

It took exactly 29 days to shoot the film and the results keep knocking on the door as it has received many awards and recognition from the critics. With two Golden Globes, one BAFTA, one SAG , one AFI award and several other nominations "Birdman" prepares it’s final run for the most important award event of this year, the Oscars. Where it certainly promises to be in the winner list thanks to all the nominations that it has received.

John Lesher has several “special thanks” credits on several feature films under his belt, proving that no matter what type of project it is, Lesher will always bring something to the table even if he isn’t fully involved on it.