Is this the model for a “next-generation film studio”?
This interesting news item was announced in March:
Several years ago, the Hollywood producer Robert Simonds Jr. began thinking about how a movie studio for today’s age — with the ascendance of China and a dizzying array of distribution channels — should look.
Now Mr. Simonds and his backers, including TPG Growth and the Chinese investment firm Hony Capital, think they have the answer.
The group plans to announce on Monday the formation of a studio with ambitions to fill in a space abandoned by bigger rivals. Its focus: $40 million movies featuring big-name stars, the kind of comedies and dramas that have lost some currency in Hollywood, displaced by giant summer spectacles. The group’s goal is to invest more than $1 billion in new projects over the next five years.
The thing that caught my attention: $40 million movies. That is precisely the type of budget the major studios have been avoiding like the plague. So duly noted until the venture took more shape. Cut to yesterday when this was announced:
Former Universal Pictures chairman Adam Fogelson has been tapped as chairman of the motion picture group at Robert Simonds’ new film and television studio.
Fogelson, a film biz vet who headed Universal Pictures from 2009 through September 2013, will oversee all aspects of the company’s motion picture group, including its production, marketing, distribution and home entertainment strategy.
Bringing in the former chairman of a major studio is big news and tops a list of several important hires in the last six months. More information on their business strategy:
The still-unnamed studio is currently ramping up to finance and self-release up to 10 films a year, produced with budgets in the $20 million-$60 million range.
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It was a natural for Fogelson to turn to the slate of 34 to 40 films he greenlit while at Universal, including “Safe House,” “Contraband,” “Identity Thief,” “Bridesmaids,” even “Neighbors” — successful mid-range budgeted titles that fit the model of Simonds’ new company.
“Being able to hyper-focus on that with the kind of size and scale and do it 10 times a year,” eventually got Fogelson to join Simonds’ team, he said.
With the major studios making fewer movies and focusing on either $100M+ franchise movies or micro-to-low budget genres films, there is this gaping hole in the middle which this venture is making the centerpiece of their business strategy. In fact, it is being dubbed a “next-generation film studio”. Hyperbole? Probably. But then this happened two days ago:
Citing the explosive growth of Chinese giant Alibaba, Fosun chairman Guo Guangchang predicted great things from former Warner Bros. film chief Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 at a press briefing with top Sony Pictures brass and Robinov at the Sony lot Tuesday evening.
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Generally, Robinov said he is looking to make the types of broadly commercial and “visually unique” films he made at Warner Bros., which included Ben Affleck’s Argo and Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. Anticipating a staff of about 15, his company will have green-light authority but rely on Sony for marketing and distribution. Within three years, he hopes to be releasing as many as six movies annually.
Robinov said he will make films of varying budgets from $45 million to north of $100 million, looking “opportunistically” for projects that could be Chinese co-productions or otherwise “take advantage of Fosun’s relationships in China.”
Apart from the fact Studio 8 is tied to Sony, there are a couple of similarities between this venture and the Simonds/Fogelson initiative: (1) Chinese funding. (2) Mid-range budgets: $20-$60M / $45M-$100M.
Does this represent the wave of the future? Maybe. For screenwriters, it should mean more movies which translates into more gigs. Yea! Hopefully it means more movies for folks who like comedies such as Neighbors and Bridesmaids, dramas like Argo and Safe House, and other mid-priced movies featuring actual human beings, not just CGI eye-candy. Double yea!
What do you think? Are you encouraged by these developments? Think it will succeed? Head to comments and let me know what you think.
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