Q&A: Franklin Leonard
One year ago, Go Into The Story became the official Screenwriting Blog of the Black List. As part of the celebration this week, Franklin Leonard kindly offered to answer some questions, many provided by GITS readers. Today another question:
Peering into your crystal ball, what trends do you see emerging in the movie business over the next decade?
A radical transformation in the way aspiring screenwriters get their material to industry professionals… but, I may be getting ahead of myself.
Trends I feel pretty confident about:
1. Greater international focus. International box office is Hollywood’s growth sector. In the last five years, international box office in US dollars grew 35% (from $16.4BN to $22.4BN) while domestic box office has been largely stagnant, growing only 6%. Much of this growth is coming from countries with growing economies and burgeoning middle classes — Russia, Mexico, Brazil, China — who now have more time and, more importantly, money to spend on leisure activities like pay for movies. It’s only natural that the industry will consider and cater to those audiences. Expect to see more globe trotting plotlines, actors from those countries, possibly even national myths, legends, and fairy tales that can be adapted into big budget blockbusters, and less content that may offend the political sensibilities of those countries (and, more relevantly their governments.) Also, maybe fewer comedies though I’d argue that the international success of the HANGOVER franchise and TED suggests that there’s real money internationally in those that don’t worry too much about America’s tendencies toward the puritanical.
2. More experimentation with windowing. At some point in the next ten years, probably in the next two, a studio is going to do what Universal almost did with their release of Tower Heist last year: make a major release — probably a comedy — available for audiences to stream to their homes on the same night it opens in theaters. I have no idea what the response will be from audiences, but I believe it will be a critical moment in how our industry evolves amidst the current technological maelstrom.
3. More bigger movies, more smaller movies. Rising costs and largely flat domestic revenue means that making movies is an increasingly risky financial proposition. Expect the industry to respond to that risk by increasingly limiting their bets to “all-in” big ones or very responsible small ones. Increasingly Hollywood is going to be dominated by two kinds of movies: 1. Huge budget summer blockbusters where the financier (usually a studio) can reasonably hope that there’s a billion dollars worth of box office on the other end of their several hundred million dollar investment in production and marketing. 2. Movies that are made for the smallest budget reasonably possible, often for a niche audience (horror fans, independent film fans, the “urban” audience), with the reasonable hope that moderate success will turn a small profit and crossover success will yield a huge one.
4. More big budget adaptations of stories you already know. Of the top grossing 35 films of the last 15 years, all but two were either sequels or adaptations of stories most people already knew when they went into the theater. (The two are AVATAR and FINDING NEMO.) Need I say more?
5. More smaller movies, period. Never has it been less expensive to make a movie. If you have a smartphone with a video camera and a halfway decent computer, you have all the tools you need. Whether it’s a good movie is entirely up to you and I’m not naive enough to think that all that many of those movies will be terribly strong, but the fact is simple: many more people today have the resources at their disposal to make a movie than ever before.
6. More varied sources of film financing. We’re seeing this everywhere, largely supported by the internet. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are extraordinary as a source for filmmakers to raise money for their projects, and Slated.com is a new venue I’m incredibly excited about for films whose budgets may be slightly outside of what one could reasonably expect to raise by crowdsourcing.
7. Increased importance of filmmakers and actors’ direct relationship with their fans. Film financiers are taking note of the extent to which actors and directors can motivate their fans to get off their couches and go see their movies. Motivated fans equal increased box office and decreased risk. This is also true for independent filmmakers who may be crowdsourcing all or part of their financing: if you’ve got a consistent community of fans who like your movies, it’s a lot easier to go them and ask them for money to make the next one, and a lot more likely they’re going to give it to you.
If you have a question for Franklin, please post in comments. Hopefully he can get to it. If not, I’ll be happy to take a crack at it.