The advance signs suggest that this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which kicked off on Thursday night, will be the backdrop to a deal-making bonanza for independent films seeking distribution. There are good reasons for such optimism. The summer box office has just seen an unexpected number of indie successes in the US. Not just THE WAY, WAY BACK, which has just crossed $20 million, but also several other festival titles that were acquired for healthy sums by distributors over the past twelve months including Mud, Fruitvale Station, Before Midnight and The Place Beyond The Pines. With the Hollywood majors training their guns so heavily on big-budget franchise movies, the marketplace appears to have opened up again to independently-resourced stories that are aimed at adults.
Couple that audience appetite with news of exciting new indie titles coming out of this week’s Venice Film Festival, and its accompanying film market run by Pascal Diot, spice that up with the arrival of aggressive new distributors operating in the specialist niches, and you have prime buying conditions. So long as those same ambitiously told, modestly budgeted films also have recognizable enough names attached that can help build awareness. Actors may no longer propel Hollywood’s studio turbines but they are most certainly the economic drivers of the independent world – a star power reinforced by many of those very summer sleepers on the indie circuit this year.
This financial reality was driven home by Variety in a TIFF curtain-raising article in which the head of one sales and financing entity noted: “once you go past $2 million or $3 million, the casting really becomes a key dynamic.” Exactly what that budget ceiling should be, and how it might flex up or down depending on the story’s strength, particular genre, the experience of the filmmaking team and the combined market value of the assembled cast is all part of a decision-making matrix known as film packaging. So much of a film’s commercial desirability rides on those packaging decisions, which blend market knowledge with creative intuition, that we have decided to home on this particular area as the subject of an upcoming series of filmonomics posts. They start next week in anticipation of the IFP’s Independent Film Week and its flurry of project evaluations and talent assessments. In the meantime, here is a round-up of what Slated’s community has been up to these past few weeks:
TRIO IN PRODUCERS LAB TORONTO
Among the 24 participants selected for this week’s Producers Lab Toronto, the networking event that runs during the Toronto International Film Festival, are three Slated producers. Canada’s Gerry Lattmann will be looking for international partners for his revenge comedy THE BIRDER. Australia’s Melanie Coombs will be doing the same for MIDNIGHT IN BYZANTIUM starring Sam Neill and Miranda Otto. And rounding out the trio is Matthew Cervi, president of Mad Samurai Productions. The lab has assisted in the development of several co-productions over the past few years.
MENTAL DISORDER DOC PICKED FOR IFP WEEK
The top trending film on Slated right now is MAKE ME NORMAL, produced by Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte. An exploration into the current state of mental illness treatment and the over-prescribing of psychiatric drugs in the US, the documentary is one 50 non-fiction works-in-progress selected for the IFP’s Spotlight on Documentaries that takes place at New York’s Lincoln Center September 15-19.
BUTLER PRODUCER SERVES UP BALLET ROMANCE
Hilary Shor, one of the executive producers of Lee Daniels’ box office triumph The Butler, has arrived on Slated as the producer of the coming-of-age drama EVERYTHING CARRIES ME TO YOU. With producing credits that include Children Of Men and Daniels’ previous film, The Paperboy, Hilary enjoys a strategic alliance with Untitled Entertainment, where Laura Rister is head of production and packaging. The Butler is the first movie this year to top the North American box office in three consecutive weeks.
BAT-PRODUCER USLAN SWOOPS ON SLATED
Joining Slated is Michael Uslan, known throughout the comic-book/movie world as the producer of all modern Batman films starting with Tim Burton’s 1989 version and extending right through to Christopher Nolan’s three classics. Currently raising money for an Africa-set independent film Madame Carr, Michael is also executive producer on Zach Snyder’s upcoming Batman vs Superman, this time starring Ben Affleck as the Caped Crusader.
AFTERNOON DELIGHT TEASES BOX OFFICE
In its latest Independent Box Office survey, IndieWire reports that AFTERNOON DELIGHT, the Sundance award-winner that marks the directorial debut of Six Feet Under producer Jill Soloway, has got off to a strong start in its limited box-office debut for distributor Film Arcade. The film averaged $18,504 from each of its two theatres in New York and Los Angeles. Cinedigm will handle ancillary distribution.
MORE SLATED FILMS WIN DISTRIBUTION
Two further Slated films have now secured distribution agreements. Vertical Entertainment has acquired all North American rights to GBF. Meanwhile, Cinedigm announced that DICK FIGURES: THE MOVIE will open on Sept 17. They join a host of other listed films that been picked up for release, including DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY (Kino Lorber); THE LIFEGUARD (Screen Media/Focus World); THE CRASH REEL (Phase 4); THE INEVITABLE DEFEAT OF MISTER & PETE (Codeblack) and DANCING IN JAFFA (Sundance Selects).
IN THE NEW YORK FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT
The newly updated version of THE SQUARE is among the select group of films selected for this year’s prestigious New York Film Festival that will open on Sept 27. Getting their North American premieres at the event following their Cannes acclaim are The Immigrant, executive produced by Jacob Pechenik, and All Is Lost, co-produced by Sean Akers and produced by Neal Dodson, Rob Barnum and exec produced by Zachary Quinto and Laura Rister. The festival itself is produced by Lesli Klainberg, managing director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
SLATED TALENTS TIPPED FOR SUCCESS
Ukranian-born actress Olga Kurylenko has been attached to star in two Slated films: COMPULSION and the just-listed EVIE’S APPLE. Olga is one of more than two dozen Slated members and connected talents that were recently profiled in Fade In magazine’s cover article on “100 People In Hollywood You Need To Know”. The others are: Alicia Vikanda (star of IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS); Matt Bomer (SPACE STATION 76); Mireille Enos (YOU WERE NEVER HERE); Scoot McNairy (ASTHMA); Wentworth Miller (THE MOURNING PORTRAIT); Imogen Poots (THE BELOVED); Juno Temple (AFTERNOON DELIGHT); Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli; Salt producer Sunil Perkash; UTA agent Bec Smith; producerJonathan Schwartz; ICM agent Peter Trinh; and Dean Zanuck, producer of VOICE FROM THE STONE.
ARCHER GRAY GOES SLEUTHING
Through her new venture Archer Gray Productions, where she is president of production, Anne Carey has teamed up with Icon, FilmNation, BBC Films and See-Saw to make a feature film starring Ian McKellen as a retired Sherlock Holmes. Bill Condon will direct the UK-set production that is based on the book A Slight Trick of the Mind. Anne, along with Ted Hope and Anthony Bregman, was one of the founders of the New York production outfit This Is That Corporation.
ESCAPE THRILLER RUNS OFF WITH MORE GRANTS
Pakistani filmmaker Afia Nathanial has been the recipient of more foundation money for her film DUKHTAR (DAUGHTER). After winning the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Filmmaker Grant from the Tribeca Film Institute in April, her film project has just received a further $2000 from The Women In Film Foundation’s Film Finishing Fund – for which 113 narrative features, documentaries and shorts were submitted.
SALES AGENT CATCHES BLUEBIRD
The Yellow Affair, the foreign sales agency with offices in both Helsinki and Stockholm, has acquired all sales rights outside North America to BLUEBIRD. The US-Sweden co-production premiered to critical acclaim at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and won the Special Jury Ecumenical Award plus four Best Actress Awards at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival later in the summer.
SCHWARTZ JOINS RELATIVITY
Experienced marketing executive Russell Schwartz has joined Relativity Media as president of theatrical marketing where he will oversee a slate that includes Luc Besson’s upcoming The Family and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon. When he was president of theatrical marketing at New Line Cinema, Russell orchestrated campaigns for The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, among many other film releases. He most recently consulted at Relativity and ran Pandemic Marketing. He is also attached to CAR DOGS.
GERMAN STAR SAYS YES TO NO WAY JOSE
Talented multi-hyphenate Adam Goldberg says he has signed Franka Potente, the actress best known for Run Lola Run and the Bourne movie series, to do a “fairly outrageous.. slightly controversial cameo” in his film NO WAY JOSE. Still among the most heavily tracked projects on Slated, this “coming of middle age” comedy is being executive produced by Giovanni Ribisi through his production company Stellascope. Giovanni is an actor in another Slated-listed project, I FOUGHT THE LAW.
SEATTLE MUSIC DOC COLLECTS GARBAGE
THE GLAMOUR & THE SQUALOR director Mark Evans tells us that Shirley Manson, frontwoman of the influential band Garbage, is the latest musician to interview for his documentary about a seminal radio personality. The finished film will also incorporate up to seven minutes of animation.
LIFE OF PI ACTOR IN TWO SLATED FILMS
Adil Hussain, the actor who came to worldwide attention in Ang Lee’s Life Of Pi as Pi’s father, has joined the cast of yet another Slated film. One of the stars of SUNRISE, which has now wrapped shooting, Adil will also appear in the psychological thriller RETARDATION produced by Premila Puri Makh.
ALMEREYDA DOES THE BARD AGAIN WITH HAWKE
Ethan Hawke is starring in a modern day adaption of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline that reunites him with filmmaker Michael Almereyda who also directed him in a contemporary adaptation of Hamlet in 2000. International Film Trust (IFT) will handle international sales on the film, which is currently shooting. It is being fully financed through Benaroya Pictures, where Joe Jenckes is head of production. Hawke is fresh off two indie hits, Before Midnight and The Purge.