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Hollywood studio production today is an
international merchandising megabusiness. The
conglomerates that own the "Big Six" major studios have determined
that action-event movies with high-dollar talent and spectacular special
effects best lend themselves to such merchandising. As a result, they
have adopted a strategy of making "tentpoles"
in search of blockbuster hits - films that gross over $200 million at the U.S. box
office.
The average production budget for a studio
movie in 2008 was $75 million.  As the studios have spent more and more on comic book
and action-adventure spectacles, less and less has been left over for what
used to be Hollywood’s mainstay – the story-driven drama.
Into this vacuum have come smaller production entities – referred to as
independents. These movies are made with smaller budgets and increasingly
are the movies that garner prestige and awards in Hollywood.
Since the year 2001, of the 35 Best Picture
Academy nominations, 26
were made independently.
Variety reported, "Studios these days don't make Oscar
movies. They may distribute them, but few prestige pictures get made
without a handful of mavericks. Fed up with the conglomerate mindset
about what constitutes a good film, these people are willing to put their own
money on the line." "Mavericks
Reap Oscar Rewards", Variety, March 7-13, 2005.)
Without studio overhead and top dollar for
talent, independent movies can be made for much less than a studio
feature. "All but
one of the five Motion Picture Academy
Best Picture nominees for 2006 (Brokeback
Mountain, Crash, Munich, Good Night and Good Luck and
Capote) were made for less than $15 million. The picture that won
the Oscar, Crash, was made for $6.5 million." ("Less Cash, More Crash,"
Time magazine, February 7, 2006.)
The financial rewards can be substantial for
the independent investor. In 2006, "driven by titles like Crash,
Brokeback Mountain and March of the
Penguins, independents and indie distribs
generated $1.3 billion, or 15% of all ticket sales." ("Lost in Transition: Studio Sked Jammed as Town Leans on Niche Pix," Variety,
May 22-28, 2006.)
Even without nominations and awards, a
well-made independent movie often reaps significant returns. Phenomenal examples of high theatrical grosses from
indie movies with no award recognition are My Big Fat Greek Wedding,
$241 million, The Passion of the Christ, $371 million, and Fahrenheit
9/11, $119 million.
Other independent movies with no award
recognition have racked up less but impressive box office gains, such as:
Memento, $25.5
million; Monsoon Wedding, $13.9 million; Bend It Like Beckham,
$32.5 million; Whale Rider,
$20.8 million; and Napoleon Dynamite, $45 million. ("Summer Pix Break Out of Niches
and into Plexes", Variety, July 11-17,
2005.)
Those figures do not include revenues from DVD
and television, income that typically exceeds what a movie makes at the box
office. Nor do they include revenues from foreign distribution.
Sources of Independent
Films
Independent movies come from three
sources:
(1) Specialty divisions owned by each of the
major studios, such as Universal's Focus Features that distributed Brokeback
Mountain;
(2) Distribution companies that operate independently of the Big Six, such as
Lionsgate that distributed Crash;
(3) Smaller independent production companies that are typically owned
and/or controlled by the creative person, often a writer/director or
writer/producer in combination with a financial partner or group. My
Big Fat Greek Wedding is an example of a movie produced by such a
company. These smaller
independent companies typically make one motion picture at a time with
budgets in the range of $5 to $15 million. They seek to sell their
movie to one of the studio divisions or independent distributors that acquire
up to half or more of their distribution slates from the small production
companies. Luminous Films falls into this category.
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