Movie Business: So who’s making mid-budget movies?
Each day at noon this week, I have been taking a look at the current state of the movie business:
Monday: “Summer Movie Attendance Likely Lowest in Two Decades”
Tuesday: ‘Marigold’ and ‘Moonrise’: Summer 2012 indie B.O. champs
Wednesday: “Old People, Old Stars: Hollywood’s New Hot Demo Is Saving the Box Office”
Today let’s look at how Hollywood’s major studios have developed a bifurcated approach to acquiring, developing and producing movies: Big budget franchise movies, low budget genre pieces. What of the middle budget movies? Variety had an informative article on this recently. Excerpts:
In this era of studios drilling down on franchise tentpoles, the majors still want to release mid-range action films — they just want someone else to foot the tab, especially as the cost of their franchise tentpoles continues to soar past $200 million.
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Rena Ronson, the co-head of UTA Independent Film Group, says the indie sector is benefiting from the declining interest of the majors in financing mid-budget projects in the $50 million and under range.
“Making these kinds of films is not currently part of the big studios’ business plan, so it’s opened up the market for indies,” she says. “It’s created an enormous opportunity for the sector.” She adds that financers have been showing a growing interest in the indie sector, noting that funds are available for high-quality projects even without stars attached.
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Production-financing shingle Emmett/Furla Films has made a big impact on the indie sector, assembling more than $500 million in a little over a year and producing the hot sellers “Broken City,” “Frozen Ground,” “Alex Cross” and “End of Watch.” The shingle’s Randall Emmett asserts that the combo of his company’s financing plus studio release commitments is creating a ripple effect.
“It’s just exciting to be making movies and controlling our own destiny,” he adds. “Now we’re seeing more fresh equity coming into the marketplace when the economy isn’t doing that well.”
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Jere Hausfater, chief operating officer of 1-year-old sales and finance company Aldamisa Intl., agrees that broad-based action films represent the sweet spot for indies.
“Good action films are at the very top of popcorn escapist movies that can work everywhere in the world — Bangkok or Barcelona,” Hausfater notes. “It’s such a tried and true area where it’s friendly in theatrical, DVD and TV. You can make it in the $25 million to $65 million range because that’s (not a budget range) that the studios are into like they used to be.”
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The high-concept “Looper” is very much a Toronto-type film says FilmNation topper Glen Basner.
“We’ve always used Toronto to showcase new films at the script stage that can play internationally,” Basner notes. “We started selling ‘Looper’ at Toronto two years ago as a case in point. Much of our business is generated internationally and we continue to see some markets grow such as Russia, Brazil, India and China.”
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Ben Weiss of Paradigm’s motion picture finance group — which helped finance the “Saw” franchise and “Insidious” — is coming to Toronto with the Snoop Dog documentary “Reincarnated” and James Cromwell drama “Still.” He asserts that the indie sector’s is drawing plenty of investor interest, particularly as new revenue streams from VOD and digital become available.
“We need to have more packages,” he notes. “We have more financiers than projects.” What: Mid-budget action films attract stars and sales.
The takeaway: The indie sector has been energized by the fact that studios are shying away from lower-budget pics.
If the studios don’t want to commit solely to mid-range budget movies, that creates a hole. Increasing numbers of financing and producing entities are stepping in to fill that void. This is good news for writers who write meat-and-potatoes comedies, action, thrillers, as well as dramas.
I conducted an interview recently with a manager about the spec script market and he spoke at length about this phenomenon. I hope to post that series next week. But pay attention to this observation from the Variety article:
“Buyers need and desire films at reasonable prices,” Ronson notes. “Good underlying material and good stories are critical elements.”
On this day in which we celebrate the sale of 4 spec scripts in a 24-hour period, once again the message is clear: Buyers are looking for great spec scripts.
For more of the article, go here.