Thinking about turning down studio distribution deal...

Gratwick Films

Gratwick Films

I recently finished my first film. A horror film entitled The Perfect House. We crowd funded the project and have gotten pretty lucky with people we've met along the way.

The success of the film and a little luck we've made connections in Hollywood that have us in direct contact with the decision makers of studios like Lionsgate and Universal. If we sell our movie we are most likely looking at a deal of 1-2 million. TOPS.

Which on the surface sounds great, but after all the people along the way get their taste there's not much left and more than likely no more coming no matter how good the film does.

I had planned on the self distribution route before we ever had the contacts so I am definitely not afraid of it. In fact I believe in it more than ever in light of Kevin Smith's speech at Sundance and Open letter at www.theredstatements.com stating his intentions with his new film.

I am thinking of spurning the distributors in favor of a planned VOD release date. Say October 1st and we spend the next 8 months doing screenings and independent film seminars/Q&A promoting the release date. Before we ever shot the film we received a ton of free press on many of the popular horror sites. With a finished project to show it should be even easier to get them on board for promoting our release.

Kevin Smith says he's determined to prove you can market with nothing more than social media, easy to say when you already used the system to create the fan base. I say it can be done by a total unknown making it real for everyone.

My question is this does anyone agree with me? And are you willing to support the cause?
 
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The company I work for has a distribution arm. The guy who runs it talks about what a bitter pill it is when those people have to take a $100K distribution deal on a film they spent 2 million on. If this guy really had an offer that big on a film of that marginal quality, delusional is an understatement.
 
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Cracker Funk said:
Paranoid delusions, delusions of grandeur, lashing out at those who are trying to help, theats of violence...

All the hallmarks of bipolar disorder. So yes, it is sad.
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I'm thinking in this case it has more to do with desperation and trying to save whatever he could after putting everything he had into that film.

I hope he is okay and can turn things around.
 
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Flicker Pictures said:
I know he has nowhere near the cache of Kevin Smith, but it kinda seems like what KS did with Red State. Or not. Dunno.
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That was this guys plan - to emulate Smith and "Red State". Now we
know even the Smith fame didn't make this happen. He lost money on
the tour. Yes, people did show up - he often sold out houses - but they
were there to listen to Smith talk for 2 hours much more than to pay
$40/$100 to see his movie. The expense of not only four-walling but
lodging and transportation took most of that off the top. Where he DID
make money was selling "View Askew" merchandise and autographed
copies of his other films.
 
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I'm pretty confident that I could fill a theater at $10 a pop here locally between friends, family, acquaintances etc. That's only in my city though, wouldn't expect it to happen anywhere else.

Funny enough is, that after the cost of renting the theater and filling it at $10 a pop (cramming people in every chair up to the front break-neck row), it would only leave maybe $300-500 profit.
 
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Yep, I stopped four walling after the venue I used increased their insurance requirement. By the time I bought the required event insurance and paid the rental on the venue I needed close to 100 people just to break even. Not worth the effort.
 
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PaulGriffith said:
I'm pretty confident that I could fill a theater at $10 a pop here locally between friends, family, acquaintances etc. That's only in my city though, wouldn't expect it to happen anywhere else.
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Do you think you could fill a 200 seat theater 5 times a day, 7 days a week at $10 a ticket? That's 7,000 tickets. This is what we have to compete with when we are compared to Hollywood movie. 3,000 tickets when compared to an indie film released traditionally.

* WARNING! I am not picking on you, personally Paul. I'm illustrating a point about 'distribution' as a whole and comparing what we do in comparison to the big boys.
 
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Cracker Funk said:
Paranoid delusions, delusions of grandeur, lashing out at those who are trying to help, theats of violence...

All the hallmarks of bipolar disorder. So yes, it is sad.
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I saw it as text book narcissism.

Narcissists typically display most, sometimes all, of the following traits:[5]

An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges

Problems in sustaining satisfying relationships

A lack of psychological awareness

Difficulty with empathy

Hypersensitivity to any insults or imagined insults

Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt

Haughty body language

Detesting those who do not admire them

Using other people without considering the cost of doing so

Pretending to be more important than they really are

Bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements

Claiming to be an "expert" at many things

Inability to view the world from the perspective of other people

Denial of remorse and gratitude
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Sounds like an all-star home run of every single one of these symptoms to me.... not that Bipolar isn't possible.
 
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sonnyboo said:
Do you think you could fill a 200 seat theater 5 times a day, 7 days a week at $10 a ticket? That's 7,000 tickets. This is what we have to compete with when we are compared to Hollywood movie. 3,000 tickets when compared to an indie film released traditionally.
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And even widely recognized indie films have a very tough theatrical go of it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsBznn8D13zOdGlCeDRmWTFCYXJRWjJ3SUphZDNzMGc#gid=0
Columns Q & R, row 76.

Average (stated) budget: $4,138,409
Average (available) theatrical revenue: $2,747,774

@ $10 a pop that's over a quarter million tickets sold just to be "average", which is still an ROI loss approaching 50%, which doesn't even include P&A + distribution cuts.

The average $4m indie film premiering at Sundance - AND - picked up for a third party distributor would have to sell about 1,000,000 tickets @ $10 each before any worthwhile profit (revenues/income/sales - expenses = profit) is seen.

The same budget x 2.5 to 3 in sales applies to smaller films, as well...
... EXCEPT that they have nowhere near the same recognition.


What was The Perfect House's declared/estimated budget? $150k?

The smaller the show the more inefficient the math ratios work out, so let's push it to 3 x the budget to cover P&A + promotion + distribution.

$150k budget
x 3
= $450k revenue/income/sales
/ $10 tickets
= 45,000 tickets

Roughly.
And that's just covering guesstimated expenses.


No.
This is not easy.
Filmmaking is high-risk low-reward when you're spending more than vacation money.
You'd better enjoy the sh!t outta doing it.
Your film is just another barrel of oil or ton of gravel in the commoditized world of entertainment.

IMG_5127_450x.jpg
 
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sonnyboo said:
Do you think you could fill a 200 seat theater 5 times a day, 7 days a week at $10 a ticket? That's 7,000 tickets. This is what we have to compete with when we are compared to Hollywood movie. 3,000 tickets when compared to an indie film released traditionally.

* WARNING! I am not picking on you, personally Paul. I'm illustrating a point about 'distribution' as a whole and comparing what we do in comparison to the big boys.
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No, I couldn't. That's the point I was trying to make, that it's unrealistic to expect it to work beyond any captive audience you have. Even the people I could pack into a theater would be there because of someone involved in the project, not because of the project itself per say.

To be fair, the hollywood guys are never packed out past release weekend, some aren't packed then. I've seen plenty of movies at 2 in the afternoon where me and the person I'm with are the only two in the theater. But they aren't paying $1500-3000 to rent a theater either.
 
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PaulGriffith said:
No, I couldn't. That's the point I was trying to make, that it's unrealistic to expect it to work beyond any captive audience you have. Even the people I could pack into a theater would be there because of someone involved in the project, not because of the project itself per say.

To be fair, the hollywood guys are never packed out past release weekend, some aren't packed then. I've seen plenty of movies at 2 in the afternoon where me and the person I'm with are the only two in the theater. But they aren't paying $1500-3000 to rent a theater either.
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This is we face as truly independent filmmakers today. We have to pay to rent the theater, studios do not. We generally only get friends and family interested.

It's hard (but NOT impossible) to break through. The toughest thing is to realize your first movie is not a masterpiece but still continue to support the film, believe in yourself, and keep making movies.

To think your first time feature film will outsell all 3 Twilight movies with Video on Demand combined is delusional and unrealistic.
 
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Dreadylocks said:
Sammi's pet peeve: untrained people diagnosing mental illness over the internet.

Let's leave it to the professionals, peeps :)
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I'm probably the only person here trained to do that. Having said that, I can't because it's on the internet and not all the information is available. It takes more than a few symptoms to diagnose an individual :)
 
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I just wasn't digging the overall vibe of the thread. I don't think there's any question that he showed signs of both delusions of grandeur, and paranoid delusions. Does that mean he's bipolar? Maybe, maybe not. But it's definitely not something to make light of. I'm not saying anyone in particular was poking fun of him, I just didn't appreciate where it felt like the thread was going.
 
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CF, I get what you're saying. Whether the intention is to pick on the guy or not, I'm getting a mean vibe from the thread. Cautionary tale though it may be, it feels like this thread is rubbing salt in the guy's already-gaping wound.

I just see way too much of people playing armchair-psychologist on the interwebz. It irks me when I see it. I wasn't trying to be rude though. Hence the all-fixing smiley face :)
 
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Dreadylocks said:
CF, I get what you're saying. Whether the intention is to pick on the guy or not, I'm getting a mean vibe from the thread. Cautionary tale though it may be, it feels like this thread is rubbing salt in the guy's already-gaping wound.

I just see way too much of people playing armchair-psychologist on the interwebz. It irks me when I see it. I wasn't trying to be rude though. Hence the all-fixing smiley face :)
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Dready doesn't scared.

And, I agree. Even if he did come off as arrogant (I participated in the thread), at this point he's learned his lesson and it is what it is. He had the guts (or whatever people want to call it) to put it all on the line and he was rewarded with experience, so next time he can approach it with a different attitude and plan.

Lots of people can't even get to the starting line, and some people just go nowhere at all even if they do something. Not saying anyone here in this thread, just sayin'.

Smiley face for me too: =]
 
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Kholi said:
at this point he's learned his lesson and it is what it is.
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I don't think Kris Hiulbert learned anything. I think he is just as arrogant and delusional as ever. He shows no signs of remorse, regret, or accepts any blame for what is clearly a self inflicted career suicide.

All we can do is spectate and pray we never ever enter a world of fallacy like this ourselves.


And Dready is just suffering from a jealousy girly disorder. I looked it up online. :grumpy:
 
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NickClapper said:
I just don't like the fact that we're still humiliating him even though he's long ceased to have a voice on this site.
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I didn't realize that I was humiliating him. Certainly not my intent when
I expressed how badly I felt regarding his current situation. I'm sorry you
feel that way about my posts.
 
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