The State of the Indie Film Business

While the trades and newspapers trot out their respective Summer 2016 obituaries:

Measuring the fallout from a summer full of box-office flops
By The Numbers: Was 2016 The Worst Summer For Movies
Only One Studio Escaped the Summer of Box Office Flops
Summer Box-Office Wrap: Why Hollywood’s on Red Alert Despite Near-Record Revenue
The summer of our discontent: When franchise overload killed movie originality
Hollywood’s Summertime Bombs Got a Lot More Disastrous This Year
Why Hollywood’s summer sequel slump won’t lead to change
The Summer Sequel Slump Is Nothing New — and It Won’t Change a Damn Thing

What about the indie film market? Earlier this week, Variety featured a Q&A with CAA agents Micah Green and Roeg Sutherland on the state of the specialty film world.

You say there has never been a better time for independent films. How is that possible?

Green: The business for filmmakers is more complex than it’s ever been. There are far more outlets for distribution than there have been, but the outlets are all different. It makes the process of figuring out how to get movies released more challenging than it used to be. That doesn’t mean fewer films are being released; in fact, far more movies are being released. Similarly, with financing, there used to be a handful of places to go to finance legitimate theatrical films. The consequence of the work we’re doing is that far more movies are getting made, far more movies are getting released, and a lot of people are making money.

Sutherland: A lot of it has to be with new platforms. I’m thinking of one we sold at Cannes [Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here,” to Amazon Studios]. Four or five years ago, that was the kind of movie we would push through production, and hopefully sell it off footage or the completed film. Now the market is robust enough that movies like that can be pre-sold at the script stage, which allows financiers to feel more confident taking a bigger risk.

Is it really just Netflix and Amazon that have upended the business?

Green: Certainly, Netflix and Amazon are interesting outlets for movies. Alongside them have come a number of well-capitalized conventional distributors, from A24 to Bleecker Street, as well as the studios themselves having renewed interest in high-end dramatic films. You see everyone from New Regency to Sony to Paramount fiercely competing.

American Honey (A24)

How do you reconcile the picture you’re painting with weak box office numbers for some festival darlings?

Green: We don’t buy for a second this argument that adult dramas don’t work. What works today across culture is that quality matters. Things that are not of high quality have a very hard time. The public is much more connected, thanks to social media. If you are trying to sell something that isn’t legitimately strong, people will find out quickly and lose interest. So oftentimes you hear people bemoaning how weak the market is. But what’s really happening is that they’re suffering. They’re having a hard time having success with a movie that isn’t being embraced.

Sutherland: You can’t buy a weekend anymore. By Friday night, if a movie isn’t good, the public knows it.

So you think in terms of box office, independent film is still strong?

Green: Actually, I would say what’s happening right now in terms of box office … it’s one of the best times it’s ever been for independently created film. Does that mean a rising tide lifts all boats? I don’t think the movie business has ever worked that way. Last year, movies like “Sicario” and “Brooklyn” were the ones that popped.

Yes, Green and Sutherland are agents, thus, in the selling business, however it is impossible to discount the presence and impact of Netflix, Amazon, A24, Open Road, Annapurna Pictures, Bleecker Street and other production entities who are investing in indie movies. Netflix and Amazon alone have reconfigured business in this space due to their deep pockets and voracious appetite for content.

So while the competition is still fierce, we are far away from when I first started this blog 8 years ago, a dark period with industry insiders lamenting the end of adult drama specifically and indie films in general due to the collapse of foreign pre-sales and the DVD market. If as Sutherland says of the movie “You Were Never Really Here” which pre-sold at the script stage, things are definitely looking up.

For the rest of the article, go here.