CONVERGENCE - SMARTPHONE CAMERA FILMS GET NEW FESTIVAL

Guardian reports on phone-filmed movies getting their own London International Smartphone Film Festival.

This shouldn't come as any great surprise. Smartphones - especially the iPhone - are being widely used as an element of TV/film production, especially for action sequences. They're seen as enhancing the intimacy of such scenes, removing the size challenge of standalone cameras.

'Soderbergh shot his 2019 basketball drama High Flying Bird on an iPhone 8 with a few modifications. He used much of the video footage exactly as he had shot it, whereas in his previous film, Unsane, he had used a special effect plug-in afterwards to recreate the look of old film stock. The American director is reportedly such a fan of the digital camera that when the British director Christopher Nolan challenged him to return to film, Soderbergh said it would be like “writing scripts in pencil”.'

WT latest franchise The Borrowers

NBCUniversal have exercised their first look deal to pick this up with WT producing - see Deadline announcement.

How $100m tentpoles make money!

$100m+ budget movies are known as tentpoles for a simple reason: no company can afford too many consecutive flops at this level.

So why, as Elberse argues they all should, do the big 5 all focus on tentpole or (as Elberse calls them) blockbuster productions?

Remember too that the prints & marketing spend is typically about the same as the production budget which is why, with cinema's cut factored in, box office needs to hit triple the production budget to start making money!!

This excellent stephenfellows feature breaks it down.

So - the true costs of a $100m tentpole actually go MUCH higher.

How on earth do they make money then?!

Well, these days they have a wide range of revenue sources and distribution/exchange outlets.

BIG 5 GLOBAL DOMINANCE

Statista is a great source

Some useful links for now (I've posted similar before with lots of analysis within the posts below...)

A mix of US and global figures/analysis

2020 will be not so useful for assessing big 5 BOX OFFICE dominance as there is so little box office to consider, but...

Deadline analysed the prospects for 2021. Note Paramount's struggles

Statista: Disney were emerging in a league of their own but have lead the shift to PVOD/streaming

Deadline.com's analysis of 2019 + 2020 forecasts.

The-Numbers.com: global, US + international 2019 hits.

Same as above but IMDB table.

ALL-TIME box office - each DISTRIBUTOR's biggest hit (the-numbers)

2019 distributors total box office (the-numbers - no surprise who's #1!! STX [Wiki] join Lionsgate as mini-majors - Paramount actually fell below Lionsgate...) Note that various big 5 subsidiaries are given separate listings

Wiki all-time worldwide box office

UK all-time box office (Wiki)

Most successful 18-rated films (UK: screendaily.com)

Age + gender of UK box office (statista.com)

Proportion of films by age rating (UK: statista.com)

Mark Kermode blog discussion on age ratings

Guide to classification (independentcinemaoffice.org)

How film regulators are responding to an industry in flux (screendaily)

A Woman's Place is in...the Director's Chair?

IN BRIEF: A collection of articles on the growing controversy over women's secondary role across every aspect of the film industry. Use the tags to see more on this

A major source: 

THE GEENA DAVIS INSTITUTE ON GENDER IN MEDIA

BECHDEL TEST:

Official site

Vogue magazine 2020 comparison with TV
11 blockbusters that fail (theculturetrip.com)

Surprising films that fail (dailyedge.ie)

2019s films that pass (therepresentationproject.org)

2021

FORGOTTEN FEMALE FILMMAKERS. Guardian.

IMPROVEMENT? 16% OF HIT MOVIES BUT...

When streamed productions (Netflix etc) are considered, this drops to 10%. Guardian.

2020 December

Geena Davis awards $25k to filmmakers from under-represented backgrounds in programme with NBC-Universal. Deadline.

How Gemma Arterton set up her own female-led production company, Rebel Park Productions. Guardian. 

2019: Top-earning 'actress' list/analysis v highest paid actors


Useful article at http://www.netribution.co.uk/people/106/1402-warped-imaginations-darklights-female-horror-directors to look at. The case of Sharon Maguire (look at the long gaps in her IMDB entry) suggests the film industry is still rather sexist? What do you think?
You'll find this is a much-discussed topic, with many references in books written by film insiders (and of course in Film Guardian articles)
Have a look at http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/ too.

http://www.womenandhollywood.blogspot.com/  is rather useful too!

Some additional articles: 

Jane Campion: 'I make films so I can have fun with the characters'

Portrait of the artist: Mira Nair, film director - 'Why are there so few women directors? Oh my God, I want to shake everyone and ask them that question'

Jennifer's Body: a feminist slasher film? Really? - It's written and directed by women, and stars a man-eating schoolgirl – but is Jennifer's Body as feminist as it thinks it is?

It's a scream! - As Halloween draws near, Wendy Roby explores a new wave of films, websites and festivals feeding women's growing hunger for horror

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_directors

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A9271028

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/cannes-film-festival/5333994/Jane-Campion-Female-directors-need-to-be-tough-to-make-it-in-sexist-Hollywood.html

http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/media-studies/21454-female-directors-vs-male-directors.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/women-on-the-verge-why-2009-is-the-year-of-the-female-film-director-1811029.html

An intriguing addition from Sigourney Weaver, famed for taking the final girl into space/establishing the possibility of making money with a female action hero with Alien and its sequels:
This article contains a caustic rebuttal, though many of the comments that follow the article are supportive of Weaver.

The view from a broad: Sigourney Weaver speaks out against bosomism
The Avatar actor has claimed that James Cameron would have won the best director Oscar if he were a woman. Of course. Laura Barton 14.4.10

You know the truly great thing about breasts? They can really get you anywhere you want to be. Earlier this week, Avatar actor Sigourney Weaver explained that mammary glands were behind the film's director, James Cameron, losing out on an Oscar to Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker – and, lest you forget, the first women to win an Academy Award for best director: "Jim didn't have breasts, and I think that was the reason," she told a Brazilian news website. That's right Sigourney, women have been using their breasts to oppress men for centuries. Weaver, of course, has first-hand experience of bosomism, having found fame as the first female action hero, Lieutenant Ellen Ripley in Alien back in 1979. "It had nothing to do with feminism," she once announced. "Men decided to make Ripley a woman for commercial reasons."
Breasts are why we got the vote too, of course. And the only reason they let Marie Curie have those Nobel prizes and stuff. Still, if Cameron wants some breasts of his very own, we believe he need only pop by Primark's children's swimwear department.

This is quoted from the article "This much I know: Gurinder Chadha" [Bend It Like Beckham]

I wish there were as many female directors as there are male. Women bring a brevity to female characters, a lightness and humour among tragedy. We understand the gamut of emotions; that we can burst into tears and then laugh.

An interesting tale of how Hollywood's reluctance to trust fem directors led to a period in the wilderness for critically acclaimed Indie director Lynne Ramsey at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/apr/22/lynne-ramsay:

It's been far too long in the wilderness for the woman who emerged in the late 90s as the UK's most exciting young auteur. She won Cannes jury prizes for her shorts, and then a Bafta in 2000 for her wildly-acclaimed debut feature Ratcatcher.
...
Ramsay turned 40 last December. So where has she been for the past decade, in which time she has been overtaken by Andrea Arnold as the critically-anointed heir to Ken Loach? She shot a couple of music videos – check out the Doves promo for Black and White Town on YouTube for those distinctive Ramsay stylings. But that's scant return for such a talent.

Kate Madison's work on the £25k Born to Hope is discussed in The Guardian.

It features strong language and pulls no punches, but the Final Girl blog, by a filmmaker at the very low budget end, can be not only very entertaining but also highly insightful and illuminating - the blog includes blow-by-blow accounts of the blogger's film-making experiences to date: http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/so-i-made-movie-part-one.html

[March 5th 2011]
After Bigelow's 2010 success, whither the 2011 crop of fem Oscar nominees?

Hadley Freeman is straight to the point with her article, 'So why do women film-makers find it so hard to win an Oscar?'

After Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to be given the best director award at last year's Oscars, there was hope that a traditionally male-dominated barrier had been broken at last. This hope looked all the more plausible because of the number of critically lauded films released in the wake of her award directed by women, notably Winter's Bone, directed by Deborah Granik, and The Kids are All Right, by Lisa Cholodenko.
Yet while both of these movies have been nominated for best film, and both feature actors who have received nominations, their directors have been ignored.
"Last year Kathryn opened doors for female directors so I was particularly disappointed that Lisa didn't get a nomination," says Celine Rattray, producer of The Kids are All Right.
Notably, the subject matter of Bigelow's film, The Hurt Locker, was war and there was only one woman in the cast, raising the question whether a woman might be able to win a film award, but she has to make a very masculine film to do so.
"I think the nominations this year in general were for flashy movies and maybe The Kids are All Right was just a little too heartfelt," suggests Rattray.
Others have claimed that Bigelow's triumph was not so much the breaking of a ceiling but a mere blip: "After Kathryn Bigelow's supremely satisfying double win for best director and best picture last year, it's particularly disheartening to see Winter's Bone and The Kids are All Right, both made by women, relegated to 'great film—who directed it again?' status," Dana Stevens wrote on Slate.com.

One fem nominee for the 2011 Oscars (4 nods, incl. Best Picture), Debra Granik, speaks of the impact of Bigelow's breakthrough ... but also of how she found herself as typecast as any actress when her debut feature made waves:

Down to the Bone won two awards at Sundance in 2004, for best director and best actress, and Granik was soon being assailed with scripts about abused, self-destructive women trying to rise above their circumstances. "What seemed to make women interesting was the degree to which they were distraught or incapacitated," she says. "I need and want to see capable women. I don't like to see them weep all the time."
Although she isn't nominated in the directing category at the Oscars, she says Kathryn Bigelow's win last year, for The Hurt Locker, gave her a tremendous shot of optimism. At film school, her class was roughly half men, half women, but even now, only one in 10 movies is directed by a woman. "To me, the quiet work is being done," she says. "In the independent world, there's just a crew of men and women working together. On the ground, day to day, you don't have to wait for a Bigelow effect."

The article is also useful for the insight into Indie filmmaking, and the struggle to get funding.
Granik had been featured before in the Guardian:
Women directors: the new generation

Debra Granik, Nanette Burstein and Sanaa Hamri discuss their ground-breaking work

The "Bechdel test", which appeared in Alison Bechdel's comic strip in 1985, goes like this: does the film have at least two women in it, who talk to each other, about something besides a man? As Debra Granik, protests, laughingly: "That's not asking so much!" but most films still fail it.
...
Granik is at pains not to "make these reductive gender things" when talking about what it is to be a female director, but she admits that "the idea of the auteur, the bad-boy director" has established "a kind of protocol that was very subjugating of other people. One thing that would be positive from women entering the field would be less bad behaviour."

[UPDATE 9.3.2011]
The figure is around 6-15% in the UK...
...the % of film directors who are female!

I commend the full article), but here's an extract and then a video containing a rather useful but also intriguing bit of theory (v. useful for hoovering up a few marks...):

Birds Eye View started out as a positive response to the fact that women make up only 7% of film directors (a statistic that remains accurate for Hollywood, and that has fluctuated between 6-15% in the UK over the last few years), and around 10-18% of screenwriters (depending on which year, and which side of the Atlantic). That's 6-18% of the creative vision in the world's most powerful medium. We live in a visual culture, and what we see on screen profoundly affects the way we see ourselves and each other. Film offers us an incredible thing – an immersive trip into someone else's universe, someone else's vision of the world. But if that vision is dominated by men then we are missing out on so much complexity, richness, diversity and creativity.

Here's the theory, wrapped up in a short but entertaining vid for you...

HAVE YOU GOT ANY MORE SUGGESTIONS? PLEASE ADD A COMMENT IF SO...

INDUSTRY 2020-21 CONVERGENCE COVID CRISIS

I'll update this through to July 2021, then set up a fresh post for 2022. The basic headline ... 

THE CINEMA RELEASE WINDOW HAS BEEN OBLITERATED BY DISNEY AND NBCUNIVERSAL ... BUT PVOD ISN'T NECESSARILY THE POST-COVID KING

Statista reveal the startling covid impact (US + Canada figures)

Globenewswire report, 2020

Financial Times Feb 2021 report: the business sections are good sources of film news!

NETFLIX BUYS BIG FOR ROALD DAHL UNIVERSE

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/22/netflix-acquires-works-of-roald-dahl-as-it-escalates-streaming-wars-matilda-bfg?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER DECLARES NETFLIX BIG WINNER OVER BIG 5 2019/20

Detailed article that considers each studio + Netix in turn.

While Western cinemas have been largely shut or empty for a year+ China's have largely re-opened, and the world's 2nd biggest film market is at least temporarily by far the largest in 2020/21 so far.

Moreover, that market is moving away from the big 5 tentpoles with several local productions topping $0.5bn in China alone, eg the comedy Hi Mom ($700m+).

Remember, China operates a strict quota system to limit non-Chinese releases. In 2012 that was just TWELVE foreign releases a year!!! (FT)

ROLLING UPDATES ON CINEMA INDUSTRY NEWS 2020/21

LAWSUITS AGAINST TORRENT PIRATES NEW REVENUE STREAM?!

https://torrentfreak.com/movie-piracy-customers-of-major-uk-isps-receive-letters-demanding-cash-210915/

STARS, DIRECTORS FIGHT AGAINST HYBRID RELEASE STRATEGY AS SCARLETT JOHANSSEN SUES DISNEY! BUT.... PEACOCK HITS 54M SIGN-UPS + STARTS INTERNATIONAL ROLL-OUT

Guardian on Johannsen. Variety on Peacock.

Guardian follow-up on Johansson highlights how many of the films given hybrid or streaming only releases were those led by women, people of colour and queer identities.

NETFLIX HITS 80% OF 18-34...TURNS ATTENTION TO GREY MARKET, 55-64+

Interesting demographic stats (Guardian) on Netflix UK and wider audience, incredible that they're already at 80% penetration of 18-34 segment (counting subscribers and shared logins). That 55-64 is the lowest big demographic (ignoring 65+) BUT leapt to 50% during the pandemic is astonishing. That puts real question marks over the future of the UK terrestrial channels, BBC1/2, ITV1, C4 and C5.

BLACK WIDOW 2ND WEEK COLLAPSE UNDERMINES DUAL RELEASE (SIMULTANEOUS CINEMA/STREAMING) STRATEGY

BBC reports an historical 67% US box office drop for Black Widow, which has thus swung from hit to miss, and still doesn't have a China release date. That's Disney; Universal avoided a boycott threat, which may yet switch to Warner Bros who announced ALL their slate would debut in HBO Max + cinemas simultaneously.

MATT DAMON LOST $284m BY TURNING DOWN AVATAR!

The article figure ignored the reality of how 10% of 'profit' is calculated, but still - what a deal to turn down!!

INDIE PVOD HIT GREENLAND SELLS SEQUEL FOR $75m AT CANNES

IndieWire: The numbers are impressive. Having scored $52m from global theatrical, it was P/VOD only for the USA...:

IndieWire’s box office expert Tom Brueggemann reported in February 2021 that “Greenland” had “ranked at or near the top of the VOD charts ever since” it became available to purchase December 18, adding, “Chart placements aside, VOD financials are difficult to assess. However, evidence suggests that STX has already net $60 million-$80 million on the film’s $35 million budget.”

WILL EU IMPOSE TV/FILM QUOTA ON UK PRODUCTIONS?

Probably! Many Euro nations (including the UK until Thatcher) impose limits on the US % of one or more of TV, radio, cinema productions broadcast/screened to prevent the annihilation of domestic production, therefore representation, by the globe-stangling big 5.

 (Useful counterpoint - Netflix seems to have concluded that sizeable domestic production is key to success in non-US markets, not just blockbusters and their own tentpole productions like The Irishman. Spotify likewise has given a global platform to K-Pop, Hispanic beats and more, popularising many non-Western artists.)

Now the EU are considering laying the boot into the UK by restricting access for its media productions.

AMAZON BUYS BOND STUDIO MGM FOR $8.5BN - TIME TO TALK OF A BIG SIX AGAIN?

Read the Bradshaw analysis here; quotes below are from this fellow Guardian article.

If you want further insight into the craziness of the film industry, try this denofgeek story about the time United Artists (owned by MGM) gave up a 30% ownership stake to Tom Cruise in return for his signing a production deal.

'The famous studio has a library of 4,000 film titles and 17,000 hours of TV programming – ranging from Gone with the Wind and The Hobbit to TV hits such as The Handmaid’s Tale – that has collectively won more than 180 Academy Awards and 100 Emmy Awards.

Four years ago, Amazon splashed out $1bn on the rights to make six TV series in the world of The Lord of the Rings after its founder, Jeff Bezos, reportedly cited Game of Thrones as the sort of hit he wanted to drive the growth of the company’s streaming service.

Amazon spent $11bn on content last year, up from $7.8bn in 2019, as it increasingly invests in winning subscribers to its Prime subscription service. Netflix spent about $17bn last year. Amazon is vying for global streaming supremacy with Netflix, which has more than 200 million subscribers, and Disney+, which launched 18 months ago and has rapidly grown to more than 100 million subscribers.'

UNIVERSAL SET IMAX RECORD IN CHINA WITH F9 [FAST + FURIOUS]

ComingSoon. They actually released it in China FIRST, another sign of the USA's weakening grip as the top global market, where it took an astonishing $136m in the opening weekend! Furthermore, wrestling star John Cena who stars in F9 went on to Weibo to apologize for (accurately!!!) describing Taiwan as a country. Nothing can be allowed to dent blockbusters' commercial prospects! (The source is linked to the Chinese government: GlobalTimes)

His apology has had a mixed reaction on Chinese social media - the Guardian doesn't bother reporting reaction in Taiwan, a state fearing military invasion to enforce China's claim, an illustration of Chomsky's propaganda model (five filters: source strategy) at work. BUT does report that Vin Diesel, the franchise's lead star, announced part of the next film will be shot in China.

WARNER MERGER CREATES DISNEY RIVAL. UNIVERSAL, PARAMOUNT UNDER PRESSURE TO COMPETE. AMAZON BUYING $9BN MGM (BOND etc)

Guardian - Brands like HBO, Warner and Discovery are now under one roof as the drive to create subscription platforms with compelling TV/film content and large libraries encourages yet further concentration of ownership. HBO/HBO MAX have 64m global subscribers. The new conglomerate, WarnerMedia, is valued at $230 bn with $52bn annual revenues.

Amazon is set to buy mini-major MGM for $9bn (Guardian): Bond is the fifth most-valuable movie franchise of all time, with its 24 films to date grossing more than $7bn, behind only the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Spider-Man films. And with a loyal, global fanbase the films can be relied on to bring in about $1bn at the global box office.

[They looked at streaming options but calculated that revenues would be below any near-normal cinema rate, not having their own huge subscriber base like Disney. After FOUR postponed release dates, with the Billy Eilish theme track already out, it's set for 30.9.21]

Last year, Amazon spent $11bn on creating, acquiring or licensing music and video content for Prime subscribers, up from $7.8bn in 2019. Netflix spent about $17bn last year.

UNIVERSAL ITALY USES MAN TO DUB TRANS WOMAN

The practise of using deep-voiced CIS men to dub a trans woman's voice is also seen in Germany and Spain. Social media outrage has seen Universal apologize and pull the Italian version of Promising Young Woman and delay the release until they replace the transphobic overdub. Guardian.

NBCUNIVERSAL STREAMING PLATFORM PEACOCK HITS 42m SUBSCRIBERS

Disney+ growth is fuelled by The Mandalorian, for Peacock it's the WWE Network (American wrestling) and the sitcom The Office (the dreadful American version, not Ricky Gervais' original BBC series). Amazingly, NBCUniversal revenues were only down 9% in 2020. Deadline. More precisely, film/TV revenues only fell 0.6% with Universal theme parks expected to boom as covid eases (Variety).

And it might employ vertical integration with another Comcast subsidiary, Sky, to roll out a version of Peacock in Europe. BroadbandTVNews.

MARCH 2021

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TORY PM JOHNSON APPOINTS VUE CINEMA CHIEF TO HEAD BFI - CULTURAL VANDALISM?

In some regards not surprising - Boris Johnson lies somewhere beyond mainstream right-wing thinking in general, not just in his enthusiasm for unregulated free markets, so the BFI might be seen as an ideological enemy like the BBC. But still ... to head up an institution charged with promoting the heritage of British cinema as well as diversity within the modern industry and it's productions with someone representing two pension funds, owners of the Vue cinema chain, seems somewhat antagonistic to the often arthouse outlook of the BFI.

The Guardian noted the PM's favourite film is Dodgeball, a crude Hollywood comedy; 'the love of Hollywood product over anything British is striking for a man so steeped in patriotism.

Then again, such is the strange nationalism of this culture war. For all the tallying of union jacks in BBC annual reports, actual British talent is often cut from the top table. Netflix is held up as everything the BBC should aspire to. And in film, the closest thing to a government tsar is the chair of the BFI, a job Downing Street recently gave to Tim Richards, Canadian CEO of Vue cinemas, its parent companies two Canadian pension funds. Behind the scenes, the flag is for the punters. The money flows elsewhere.'

WARNER BROS ENTIRE 2021 SLATE OPENS ON HBO MAX - DUNE 75% FINANCIERS LEGENDARY SUE!

ScreenRant report on Warner's cinema/streaming same-day release strategy, another of the big 5 locking in the demolition of the release window. Dune is their biggest 2021 tentpole, with 6 sequels planned. The production company that footed 75% of the budget is understandably enraged: they won't get any returns from HBO.

ANALYSIS: WILL CINEMA RECOVER POST-COVID?

Excellent Guardian feature.

BLACK WIDOW LATEST CINEMA/DISNEY+ PVOD DUAL RELEASE, TV RECORD FOR THE FALCON + THE WINTER SOLDIER

Guardian reports that Disney continues with a mixed Disney+ only in territories with the service (Pixar's Luca) and simultaneous cinema/PVOD ($30 for Disney+ subscribers only, Luca + Black Widow) despite the boycott of some major US cinema chains over its smashing of the release window. The US market remains largely shuttered, running at around 10% of its pre-covid numbers while China enjoys a run as the world's largest market.

FEB 2021

PARAMOUNT SLASH 90 DAY RELEASE WINDOW IN HALF

Variety report the latest knife into the cinema corpse as the big 5 turn to their streaming subscription brands. 

PARAMOUNT PLUS SUFFERS WEAK BRANDING AT LAUNCH

It's replacing CBS All Access after the CBS/Viacom merger, but its launch and campaigns have ignored the CBS link. Variety. Here's a later breakdown of the subscription offer (also Variety).

DISNEY+ HITTING 100M AND LAUNCHES ADULT CHANNEL

Specifically: 95m subscribers since launching in March 2020, so already half of Netflix's 200m. They're creating a 14+ channel for subscribers using a lot of back catalogue TV like Ugly Betty, Ally McBeal and Family Guy. Guardian 

Luke Bradley-Jones, senior vice president of direct-to-consumer and general manager at Disney+ EMEA, acknowledged that some parents might have concerns about more adult content on Disney+. “We want to ensure Disney+ remains a loved and trusted environment for audiences of all ages, which is why we have been working hard on our product roadmap, and we have got some new parental control features that we are introducing, which are very robust and easy to use.”

Bradley-Jones said the controls would sit alongside the existing children’s profiles features and allow customers to set content ratings and control access to the app, and to individual profiles, based on those content ratings.

There will be seven ratings, from zero+ to 18+. The controls will also let customers use a pin “to make sure that other members of the household do not watch what they are not meant to”.

CHINA BOOMS AS US STILL DORMANT

Detailed FT report. 2 stats: China's regulator allows just 32 US films (the quota); Hollywood studios get to keep just 25% of Chinese revenues, the rest going back in to a Chinese state film firm!

Hollywood has always faced state-imposed limits on its ability to reach and profit from Chinese audiences. Beijing’s film industry regulator maintains a quota of 34 imported films per year, and importers only get to keep 25 per cent of box office revenues — remaining income goes to state-owned China Film Group or Huaxia Film.

You can see how China was fast catching the US in box office totals before the covid pandemic.

CINEMAS RENT SCREENS TO GAMERS

Symbolic of how they're struggling to survive. BBC.

This can also be seen in Luxembourg!

Kinepolis are offering private group rental as one means of combatting covid limits and fears.

JAN 2021

NBCUNIVERSAL'S PEACOCK GROWING FROM 26M SUBSCRIBERS?

Variety report on their new centralised strategy, focusing on Peacock at the heart of it all.

COMPARING NETFLIX $17bn + DISNEY 2021 STRATEGIES

Netflix is now drawing over $6bn each quarter, over $25bn a year, but continues to spend massively - hoping to force several rivals out of business. Good Guardian feature on how Disney+ is focused on exploiting existing IPs but that we also see Netflix developing a small number of franchises too. It's new marketing video, fronted by Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds (appearing together in a Netflix tentpole), promises a new movie every week. That's more than double Warner's output for example.

DEC 2020

CONVERGENCE: LOW-COST FOREIGN DUBBING FOR INDIES?

See this Guardian article.

WARNER JOIN THE RELEASE WINDOW SMASHING

Guardian. Cinema is doomed... (Another article analysed the reopening of 150 cinemas in the UK)

Warner Brothers has announced that their 2021 slate of releases, including high-profile films such as Dune and The Matrix 4, will premiere on the streaming platform HBO Max.

The new hybrid release model will see 17 films launch online for US subscribers at the same time as they are released in cinemas, where available. They will then be available to watch for a month for no extra charge. The films will still receive a standard theatrical release internationally.

Rival studio Universal recently reached agreements with a number of US exhibitors to show their films while allowing a 17-day window before a digital release. 

NETFLIX $1bn UK 2021 BUDGET, BIGGER THAN EVEN DISNEY

Imagine you're Warp's chief executive hearing this - even a studio subsidiary like Working Title should be concerned ... as will the cinemas, as this further boosts HOME cinema. Guardian.

Last October, Netflix struck a 10-year deal to take over all of Shepperton Studios, where films ranging from Alien to Mary Poppins have been made, to guarantee the space it needs to pump out productions without delay. The first production was the Charlize Theron film The Old Guard.

Shepperton’s parent company Pinewood Studios, home to the James Bond and Star Wars franchises, has struck a similar deal with Disney. The world’s largest entertainment company agreed the long-term deal as it shifts the business, traditionally focused on cinema releases and pay TV, to streaming with the launch of the Disney+ streaming service.

Earlier this month, Disney announced that its streaming service, which has been underpinned by the $100m Star Wars TV spin-off The Mandalorian, has managed to attract 74 million subscribers worldwide less than a year after launch.

Nearly £3.7bn was spent on shooting high-end TV shows and films in the UK last year, including blockbusters such as the James Bond film No Time to Die. Although £1.95bn was spent on shooting films, the growth engine is high-end TV production, defined as shows that cost more than £1m an episode to make.

Spending on such shows, from Game of Thrones to His Dark Materials, almost tripled to £1.7bn between 2014 and 2019, according to industry body the BFI. Almost 80% of that spend is from the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Disney, which have a combined UK viewership of more than 30 million, and more than 400 million globally.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD IN 40+ FILMS FREE THROUGH GOOGLE MAPS ON GOOGLE PIXEL 5G PHONES; APPLE CONVERGENCE TOO

Yet another means of distribution, another example of convergence...MAPS = FILM?!?! This is a tie-in, but on an epic scale, promoting Google Maps AND Google's Pixel phones (specifically newer 5G models). Despite many vastly bigger hits like Skyfall within the 40+, the article I read leads on SotDead.

Given that this is a 15, this would seem to undermine the BBFC age rating system too - surely most moderately determined younger teens would manage to sidestep any age restrictions?

This comes on the same day that news of Apple's newest line-up refresh comes out. They're using new custom-made ARM processors ... and the new OS (OSX is finally done, this is effectively OS11) is designed to make apps usable across iPhone, iPad and Macs, another great example of ever-deepening convergence. The iPad was already usable as a 2nd screen, a potentially great productivity boost for FCPX users.

KEY ISSUES:

convergence;   tie-ins;   age ratings/regulation;   globalisation;   Working Title;   5G;   Retromania (Simon Reynolds);   BFI

QUOTES:

A number of beloved British movies have been scattered across Google Maps, encouraging film fans to find and watch them for free.
The “virtual movie hunt” initiative is being launched by Google as part of their Google Pixel presents Mobile Cinema campaign later this month, in collaboration with the British Film Institute.

Discussing the choice of films and the upcoming initiative focusing on nostalgia, Dr Wing Yee Cheung, senior lecturer in psychology and researcher on nostalgia at the University of Winchester, said: “These movies are embedded with sensory memories of when we first watched them and whom we watched them with, which are key triggers of nostalgia.

Netflix is rated by the stock market as worth $10bn more than the king of vertical integration, Disney (Guardian), but can it really see off Disney+, Peacock (NBCU), HBO Max (Warner), Amazon Prime etc?

The Witches goes PVOD as Vue (UKs 3rd biggest cinema chain announces closures (Sky)

Now the world's biggest cinema chain, AMC (owns Odeon UK chain) sparks fears of going bust after Disney pull Soul. Wonder Woman 1984 the only blockbuster booked for rest of 2020!

Disney kicks cinemas when they're down! Soul goes Disney+ only (Guardian)

UPDATE 3: WORLD'S 2ND LARGEST CINEMA CHAIN SHUTS DOWN!!!! OCT 2020

After Bond delay, Picturehouse shutters 100s of UK & US cinemas (Guardian)

With the aggressive expansion of online-first approaches (PVOD) by both Disney and NBCUniversal, it's looking increasingly likely that the normal practices of the film industry have been trashed by the covid crisis, with the release window smashed wide open and reopened cinemas struggling:

Cineworld, which owns the Regal cinema and Picturehouse chains, is understood to be preparing to announce plans to close all its 127 theatres in the UK as soon as Monday. It is also closing all its 536 Regal cinemas in the US.

Its cinema in Dublin, its only venue in Ireland, had to close due to tightened Covid-19 restrictions two weeks ago, and it seems unlikely it will reopen.

UPDATE 3B - WHY THE TENTPOLE/BLOCKBUSTER FOCUS IS TO BLAME!!

Mark Millar, the Scottish comic book writer who created the Kingsman and Kick-Ass films, said the mainstream cinema industry had become too reliant on making a handful of blockbuster films with $200m-plus budgets rather than a variety of mainstream films with $50m to $80m budgets.

“This requires huge number of tickets needed to break even so nobody can risk the loss,” said the writer, who now works for streaming giant Netflix. “A slew of mid-budget movies could have salvaged [the situation] but studios don’t make those any more, sadly.” (Guardian)

And more tentpoles kicked back a year! (Guardian again)

UPDATE 2 - NOW DISNEY PUT TENTPOLE MULAN DIGITAL ONLY

Disney opts for digital-first release of Mulan, shocking cinema owners.
MacRumors on same story - site users suggest torrenting instead...

UPDATE: New Guardian analysis considers the challenges to NBCUniversal's attempt to smash the release window - only an option for mid-level hits of under $500m box office expectations, won't work in China (world's 2nd biggest cinema market with $9bn take for 2019) or outside the richest countries like USA/UK.

The big 5 are itching to take control of the exhibition/exchange endpoint of the film cycle and to undermine the 3-month release window that sees cinemas have exclusive screening rights.

Disney tried to break it with Alice in Wonderland, but backed down after they faced a boycott from the big cinema chains in the USA.

Another nice summary from the cinematicslant blog.

Now it's NBCUniversal's turn with a Trolls movie.

They've made as much from its premium VOD (PVOD) release ($19.99!!!) as from its cinema run, the $100m equalling the much higher box office return as NBCU keep a much higher % of the PVOD fees.

Despite the threat - the Odeon chain have announced a worldwide ban across their 1000+ cinemas of all NBCUniversal releases - they've announced more PVOD releases, high profile movies that would have played in currently shuttered cinemas.

This is a big story for the industry.... It's also an Oscars issue, with the anti-Netflix rule insisting on a theatrical release (which forced Netflix to do a small release of The Irishman and Roma to qualify last year) changed to theatrical release intended. Will they be able to close that door again?

CONVERGENCE drones replacing helicopter shots

See this article about Les Miserables (urban French thriller/drama, NOT the WT adaptation...).

Skyfall and Jurassic World were early adopters of these metallic dragonflies; Time estimated in 2018 that the daily cost of using a drone in a film stood at between $4,500 and $13,000, compared to $20,000 to $40,000 for a helicopter. Now the airborne images seen in every YouTube travel video risk creating a homogenous style of cinematography. If any amateur can achieve that effect, how will movies set themselves apart?

TERMINOLOGY - key terms and theories

 I'll build this up over time.

WORKING TITLE The High Note 2020

8m trailer views just on the Focus Features channel alone by 26.8.20:

VERY BRIEFLY...

• $20m production; limited cinema release - $19.99 PVOD (NBCU keep higher % than box office)
• Co-production: WT/Perfect World - a Chinese co
• Leads aren't A-listers yet but features Ice Cube as antagonist
• Unfortunate hero's journey? White Dakota Johnson seeks to push out Ice Cube
• Zeitgeist/generic: riding on success of many recent music biz hits (Yesterday! A Star is Born)
• Real-world singer (like Yesterday) used on OST; vinyl release
• Feelgood ending/American dream (Billy Elliot...) - note the prominent Vogue quote: "perfect entertainment"

Scroll to the bottom for some sample paragraphs employing a range of terminology ... which will help with the crossword I've done on this film...

LINKS:
INDIEWIRE ANALYSE PVOD ECONOMICS
BOXOFFICEMOJO
WIKI
Official Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

WT page

A-LIST 20 million fees often from Netflix, The Rock biggest star

I've frequently cited the rough figure of $20m to hire a true A-lister to star in a movie, and figures just released bear this out. Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Adam Wahlberg all hit this mark recently.

The big surprise comes from who's paying these fees - yes, Disney's name pops up but it's Netflix which is responsible for around 25% of the fees recorded in the annual Forbes report.

Note that they issue separate reports, a week apart, for male and female stars. This article therefore only considers the male stars.

The Adam Sandler case shows the rise of the exclusive production contract too - a throwback to the era when studios controlled stars under exclusive contracts, but with the power reversed. Also comparable with the Vegas residencies by the likes of Britney Spears in the music industry.

$250m for four Adam Sandler movies, in a world where Ed Sheeran is of equivalent standing in the music industry - we live in truly dark times. But I commend reading this short article to grow your grasp of the film biz and it's warped star economics!

Dwayne Johnson tops Forbes list of world's highest-paid male actors.

WORKING TITLE Yesterday 2019 10m on Beatles rights alone

BASICS: 

BOX OFFICE + HOME MEDIA REVENUE $26m budget

$73m USA, RoW $80m (incl UK $18m), total $153m. 3rd biggest hit on its release in the US, 2nd in the UK (Toy Story 4 the tentpole ahead in both territories). 

It added $80m in DVD, TV + streaming (home media) ... so far.

LEGENDARY/MARKETABLE writer and director: Richard Curtis, Danny Boyle. Its actually based on a 2012 screenplay by Jack Barth, a 1st-time writer! But Curtis took all the credit (and money for that)

MUSIC STAR CAMEO PUSHED IN TRAILER: 

Ed Sheeran had an important role (Coldplay's Chris Martin turned it down)

NOTABLE PRODUCTION COSTS, MARKETING SPEND...RELEASE STRATEGY:

$10m on getting rights to Beatles songs from Apple/Sony. 

$75m marketing spend. Lucked into a lucrative summer holiday release to avoid a rights case with Paul McCartney (music rights reverting). See the explanation of how writer etc get ripped off on net points.

NARRATIVE TWEAK AFTER TEST SCREENING:

Love triangle plot was cut with the other love interest after hostile test audience responses (this made Patel less sympathetic)

TYPICAL LOW AGE RATING: 

PG-13; BBFC 12 ('infrequent strong language, drug references, moderate sex references'). Summer holidays release.

WT page.

Wiki snippet on the release date strategy - put into the more lucrative, high profile summer season to avoid paying out to Beatle Paul McCartney ...

Yesterday was initially set for a September 2019 release, but was moved up to 28 June 2019, largely as a result of a copyright suit filed by Paul McCartney. The rights to some of the earlier Beatles songs used in the film would revert to McCartney in the autumn of 2019, and Sony Music wanted to get ahead of it.

The first official trailer of the film was released on 12 February 2019. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on 4 May 2019

It would be the 3rd biggest hit on its release in the US, and 2nd in the UK (Toy Story 4 the tentpole ahead in both territories).

From the Wiki (based on the Deadline article linked below): 

As of May 2020, it has been estimated that the film will have generated $68 million in global television revenue, in addition to $10.4 million in net revenue for home video and streaming. This adds up to a total estimated home media revenue of $78.4 million.

notes for now...

DEADLINE ANALYSIS: How studios appear to rip off cast/crew with NET points

Lot of good financial insight - the budget is $26m, but for those seeking a share of profits its listed as $41m ... the difference is the large ($15m!!) tax credit from the UK government, which remains counted as a cost for calculating net profits.

To put even a mid-budget WT film into perspective, the $10m they spent to get rights to use some Beatles songs is more than the full budget of almost all non-WT UK film company productions in any year.

$4m was spent on prints; $23m on distribution fees, and a whopping $75m on marketing spend.

Indiewire noted: 

In the end, Boyle used 17 Beatles songs — and contracted with Apple for rights to use 15-18, without having to specify which ones.

BOX OFFICE SUMMARY (BoM)

Until you begin to consider the hidden costs, it looks really good...

Of the $26m budget a $73m USA take and $80 RoW (rest of the world) for a $153m total. Peaked at 2,755 theaters in the US, a sizeable but not top line hit.

Released June 28th (USA), running to Sept 5th, so out for the summer holiday months.

The movie is marketed, and credited, as written by Richard Curtis, whose name sells given his links to multiple major rom-coms with WT. However, the original screenplay dates to 2012, and, as Uproxx note, the writer Jack Barth is furious at how Curtis and WT squeezed him out, ensuring he didn't profit from this major hit.

his script, Cover Version, was acquired by Working Title Films and eventually became Yesterday, from legendary British filmmakers Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Steve Jobs, 28 Days Later).

“I wrote the first treatment in 2012 and in 2013 and I gave it to my agent. She gave it to a producer named Matt Wilkinson,” Barth says, of his script’s initial journey. “Matt tried to get it going as a project that we would fund for maybe $10 million, a low budget film, plus whatever it cost to clear the Beatles rights, which would’ve been a lot. [Wilkinson] got a guy named Nick Angel at Working Title, who’s a professional music clearance guy, working on the Beatles clearances. In the course of doing that, years later, he mentioned it to Richard Curtis because they’re friendly. Richard said, ‘That’s a great idea, I want to do it’ because he had a deal with Working Title/Universal to make a couple of films. He wanted [Cover Version] to be one of the films that he made.”

The article picks up on the theme of net profit points, quoting an entertainment lawyer as saying that in 28 years of working he only knew of 3 movies to show a net profit (ie, after all expenses are deducted). Net points are essentially worthless. Gross points (which disregard expenses), can be lucrative. But Barth just wasn't considered beneficial to the marketing, and so the credit all went to Curtis.

“I contacted Universal Publicity and said, ‘Look, I’ve done some research and I don’t think there’s ever been a screenwriter who sold his first screenplay at my age,'” Barth says. “It’s an interesting angle, almost inspirational. I think it’s a great story. But Universal didn’t want it, they kind of had their marching orders — that it was ‘Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle, two great British filmmakers working together at last.’ I understand that in terms of cleaning up the marketing.”

THE ROLE OF TEST SCREENINGS

Great example here - a character and sub-plot (another relationship for the protagonist) were cut as test screenings showed the audience felt this made Patel a less sympathetic lead. (Cinemablend)

there was one subplot containing an entire character who was cut from the film, despite staying in Richard Curtis’ script and even remaining in the trailer for Yesterday’s theatrical release. It’s her picture you see at the very head of this story, and her name is Roxanne, played by Blade Runner 2049’s Ana De Armas.

Originally, Roxanne would have been the third point of the typical love triangle you’d see in a romantic comedy like Yesterday, coming between the romance of Lily James’ Ellie and Himesh Patel’s Jack Malik

.

TWO POWERPOINTS...

Yesterday crib notes from DB3igs

Yesterday from DB3igs