Features

Distribution: A hint of local flavour

Red Dog will be a broad comedic family film for RoadshowAll distributors, big and small, have hits and disappointments; it’s the nature of the business. Encore spoke with a number of distribution executives about their year and their relationship with Australian films.

The last 18 months have seen an unusual number of Australian films cross the $1m line, with Mao’s Last Dancer ($15.4, Roadshow/Hopscotch), Bran Nue Dae ($7.5m, Roadshow), The Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2 ($4.9m, Paramount/Transmission), Animal Kingdom ($4.3m, Madman), Charlie & Boots ($3.9m, Paramount/Transmission), Beneath Hill 60 ($3.2m, Paramount/Transmission) and Samson & Delilah ($3.2m, Paramount/Transmission/Footprint) all delivering strong results – they may not all have made their budget back, but it’s a step forward in recapturing local audiences beyond niche numbers.

There is optimism, but that doesn’t mean everyone is taking the cheque book out to book the next 10 available Australian films.

At Icon Film Distribution, Greg Hughes feels that, 2D or 3D, the theatrical business is all about the survival of the fittest, and a few local hits do not an industry make.

“I don’t believe [a few hits] will see distributors clamouring for more Aussie films to add to their slate, but they have put a few extra filmmakers on the radar.“

“I’d love to think [this success] gives private and government funding bodies and filmmakers more confidence and comfort, but in reality we all know the ebbs and flows of this business and the economic and market realities of local films here,” said Sony Pictures’Stephen Basil-Jones (The Proposition, Gabriel, Red Hill).

Roadshow has been one of the most successful when it comes to local product, with upcoming titles including Red Dog and The Cup. Managing director Joel Pearlman believes recent hits will increase the appetite of all distributors to consider a greater number of acquisitions.

“Diversity is always appreciated, because the more diverse your stories are, hopefully you’ll find something that can be presented to audiences in a unique way,” he explained. “And it’s good to have local films getting excellent distribution from major companies that have the ability to really support them.”

Not every release can be a big hit. Pearlman was “disappointed” by I Love You Too’s $2.3m result. “We thought it could work better, but that happens sometimes,” he admitted.

The company has partnered with Hopscotch Films (The Boys are Back, Accidents Happen, The Waiting City) for two of its most successful titles, Mao’s Last Dancer and Bright Star. There are no projects in common in the near future for the distribution duo – at least theatrically; there is an ongoing relationship in home entertainment. Pearlman says it would require a title that’s “suitable for us to combine our skill sets”, and Hopscotch’s Troy Lum agrees. “All major strategy decisions were jointly handled and tasks were split according to the company that either had the best relationships and expertise in that area.”

According to Lum, the company’s investment on local films has been financially a good decision (although he was “a little disappointed” with the $2m result of The Boys Are Back) – and with the company’s production division Hopscotch Features, he expects to produce one or two features each year.

Another powerful team is that of Paramount Pictures and Transmission Films. The latter also had a big hit in New Zealand with Boy, the highest grossing local film ever (NZ$10m) and the seventh biggest of all time.

Transmission director Andrew Mackie says the greatest challenge is finding material with theatrical potential beyond Australia. “We need projects that tick both local and international boxes,” he said.

Paramount is also handling its own titles separately from the Transmission partnership, with the upcoming potential blockbuster Tomorrow When the War Began, and their latest acquisition Wasted on the Young, also aimed at a young demographic.

Another successful player is Madman Entertainment. According to marketing director James Hewison, the company was very satisfied with Van Diemen’s Land (“fairly uncompromising material; we didn’t know there would be an appetite for such a film”) and the re-release of a restored Wake in Fright, both at around $300,000. And while Last Ride ($390,000) “would have done better if it had been released another year”, Animal Kingdom’s success ($4.3m at press time) has more than compensated for the shortcomings of other titles.

“We expect to get to $5m before the DVD release. We were forensic in our attention to detail, and it was a very close collaboration with the filmmakers themselves. Such collaborations, like the one we have with The Loved Ones – released in September – and the projects that are about to go into production – Snowtown and The Hunter, starring Willem Dafoe – are excellent,” said Hewison. “As much as we’re trying to make [distribution] a science, if you remove the personal passion and, to a certain degree, the subjectivity, we might as well be working on a production line.”

BEYOND WONDERLAND
In Disney territory, titles such as Alice in Wonderland, Up and Toy Story 3 were huge +30m hits, even if their local efforts failed to impress (Subdivision). This year saw the departure of MD Alan Finney and a restructure for the company. According to the managing director for The Walt Disney Company (Australia), John Cracknell, the integrated structure with the Motion Pictures and Home Entertainment marketing teams will see them work as one to drive their product through the different windows.

“The recent success of home grown productions is an achievement that should be celebrated by the industry as a whole,” said Cracknell. That celebration does not include any new local titles in the Disney release slate.

Hoyts Distribution also had a wonderful year. Their best ever, in fact, with of The Twilight Saga: New Moon and Eclipse. Daybreakers performed solidly ($2.5m), reaching almost 10 percent of its US total – a splendid result considering that most distributors agree that horror films struggle in Australia, while comedies sit on the opposite side of the spectrum, with the potential to overperform the 10-percent-of-the-US BO rule of thumb.

“We’ve always supported local acquisitions but don’t have the capacity to take on as many as we would like. We have to be very selective,” said Hoyts’ Robert Slaviero.

It’s the financial reality of the range where most Australian films sit at the box office that makes it difficult for all distributors to sustain a healthy local slate. Basil-Jones is concerned about the profitability of mid-range films, of $2-5m BO levels, both here and in the US.

“They are very problematic, and the long term implications for the release viability of this product are serious. Not only is it theatrically impossible to make money; they’re not selling the volume on DVD anymore to make up for the theatrical losses,” he said.

There are cold realities that regulate the decisions of the international distributors. Basil-Jones continued: “The relative market size and share of local films and productions in foreign markets (Japan, Germany, France, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, etc) historically means we’ll never be of the same scale.

“Our primary reason for being is to distribute and market films that are produced by our respective studios. There would have to be a seismic shift in the supply chain and business model to change that principal purpose of business – the requirement and need to bolster the studio slate and offerings does vary from year to year. But we’ve got a couple in the pipeline… one I just love.”

There are reasons to be concerned beyond Australian films, even for Hollywood blockbusters. While the box office total was up 15 percent in 2009 ($1.09 billion), attendance (84.6m admissions) was lower than the 2001/2002 record (92.5m). The amount can be attributed to the raise in ticket prices and the premium paid for 3D films. But can these factors compensate for the decrease in attendance in the long run?

“Our concern and priority has to be the quantity of visits and the quality of them,” said Basil-Jones. “Like all artificially created bubbles, it has to burst soon,” added Troy Lum.

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