“I never knew why it took the majors at least 15 years to capitalize on summer releases geared for the youth market…You (simply) made a film about something wild with a great deal of action, a little sex, and possibly some sort of strange gimmick.
B-film maker Roger Corman
Independent distributors tend to fill market segments—meaning niches—not covered by the majors. They also focus on low-budget films. Roger Corman’s book How I Made a Hundred Hollywood Movies and Never Lost a Dime from which the above quote is taken, recalls that the indies feasted on teen and youth summer movies in the 1950s to 1970s. The movies had provocative titles, such as Sorority House Massacre and Piranha.
Today, it’s difficult to prosper in the hardscrabble independent sector today, but occasional films have achieved
Table 10.3. Sample of low-budget $1.4 million movie ad campaign
Type of marketing/Spending ($)
Print/daily and weeklies 750,000
On-line/Web site 250,000
Wild posting (labor) 25,000
Radio 50,000
Outdoor billboards 0
Print/magazines 75,000
Television 0
Subtotal paid media 1,150,000
Creating trailer/ads 80,000
Duplicating posters and the like 15,000
Publicity and screenings 125,000
Festival screening support 30,000
Grand total $1,400,000
Note: 1. The figures exclude the cost of manufacturing and shipping of the release film prints.
unbelievable riches, which keeps hopes alive. In pursuit of niches, indies look for openings in film-release schedules.
Miramax took in a decent $18.7 million in 2007 box office with British drama import Becoming Jane after an early-August debut. Fox Searchlight raked in $60 million releasing low-budget acquisition Little Miss Sunshine, which was an edgy R-rated comedy that premiered in late July 2006. Fox Searchlight’s pregnancy drama Juno rolled up $140 million in domestic box office, after an early-December 2007 launch that was risky given that mainstream Christmas holiday films flooded screens two weeks later.
The horror Saw series—which numbers four films and counting—has grossed $286 million in the United States and Canada for Lionsgate on production budgets ranging from just $1.2 million to $10 million.
The film business lives off income from video and television, which has an impact on the marketing push in the theatrical window. Buyers of video and pay-television rights to independent films often specify in contracts that purchased films must have a minimum amount of marketing spending in theatrical release for the purpose of creating a marquee value.
The more expensive an indie film is to make, the more the marketing push resembles that for a major-studio release, especially when costs reach $20 million and beyond. For low-budget films, a fundamental strategy choice is whether to hold out for theatrical release as a first window or to try to create buzz with limited exposure in other media in order to create momentum for a theatrical release later. Certainly, theaters are loath to book films that have appeared in other media.
Chapter extracts in this section of the website amount to 4,000 words distilled from 110,000 words in the print book.
