Window
Dressings
by John Fithian
NATO President
On Oct. 30, IFC Films announced the acquisition
of U.S. rights to Patrice Leconte’s French comedy “My
Best Friend” (“Mon meilleur ami”), staring
Daniel Auteuil. After the picture’s successful world
premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September,
IFC grew confident in the commercial viability of the project.
Indeed,
IFC Entertainment president Jonathan Sehring told The
Hollywood Reporter that the movie “will
appeal to the masses and be supported with an impressive
level of marketing and distribution
expertise.” (Emphasis
mine.)
Given IFC’s commitment to collapsing theatrical windows
and simultaneous releases to theatres and homes, the company
could have placed the picture in its “IFC First Take” day-and-date
program. Instead, they chose a release strategy that will
open with a theatrical window and later progress to the ancillary
markets. Why? Because the movie might make some money. As
Mr. Sehring said, “This acquisition further exemplifies
our commitment to aggressively growing our theatrical release
slate for 2007 with larger commercial
films.” (Emphasis
mine again.)
IFC chose a release
strategy that will open with a
theatrical window and later progress to the ancillary
markets. Why? Because the movie might make some money. |
I agree that movies with commercial potential
should be supported by distribution expertise and a tiered
release strategy,
first to cinemas and later to the home. I guess that leaves
films with little or no commercial potential for the day-and-date
advocates.
Mr. Sehring is not the only industry expert
who distinguishes between commercial product – which is released via
the proven industry model – and small, presumably non-commercial
fare that might never be released to cinemas without a non-traditional
strategy.
Academy Award-winning director Stephen Soderbergh
is one of the few Directors Guild of America members who
are experimenting
with simultaneous release. (The overwhelming majority of
Mr. Soderbergh’s fellow guild members believe that
a tiered release system supports not only the economics of
the business, but also the motion picture art form itself.)
Mr. Soderbergh has an agreement with Mark Cuban and 2929
Productions to produce six small-budget movies for near-simultaneous
release via Cuban’s Magnolia Pictures, Magnolia Home
Entertainment and HDNet Movies channel. The first title to
be released under that agreement was “Bubble,” a
picture with a $1.6 million production budget that grossed
$145,000 in theatres.
What many would regard as Mr. Soderbergh’s “commercial” movies,
however, are not getting released to theatres and the home
without a significant window. The Soderbergh-directed “The
Good German,” a Warner Bros. drama starring Tobey Maguire
and George Clooney, is following the traditional tiered-release
model as it enters cinemas this month. A long, exclusive
theatrical window will attend also the Soderbergh-directed
Warner Bros. comedy-adventure “Ocean’s Thirteen,” coming
in June.
Similarly, Morgan Freeman and his production
partner Lori McCreary have created ClickStar Inc., which
plans to release
pictures to theatres and to Internet downloads within a few
weeks of each other. Yet Mr. Freeman continues to star in
commercial movies that follow the tiered release pattern,
like the McCreary-produced “Under Suspicion” and
next summer’s sequel to “Bruce Almighty.”
I understand why these three industry leaders – a film
company president, a leading director, and a talented actor – continue
to involve themselves in projects that utilize long theatrical
release windows; if we want to make money in this business,
we have to preserve those windows. But I am troubled by their
notion that some smaller, riskier pictures should be released
simultaneously across multiple platforms.
Without the theatrical release window, how
can smaller pictures grow to success? It’s the communal experience, the
reviews, the word-of-mouth and the prestige of theatrical
release that enabled movies like “My Big Fat Greek
Wedding,” “March of the Penguins,” “Little
Miss Sunshine,” and countless others to become something
big. “Little Miss Sunshine” has now grossed seven
times its production budget in theatrical release alone.
That success would not have been achieved had the picture
been released simultaneously to DVD or VOD.
I trust the consumer, and the consumer gets
it. Movies released first to cinemas are different, and special.
Movies released
simultaneously across multiple platforms are little more
than window dressings. 
