NEWSLETTER:  THE FILM ENTREPRENEUR

Indies Save the Day Once Again

December 2000

Another great year for indies is about to end. The small films have taken up the slack from the lack of quality big-budget films. The studio system is still beset by runaway costs as well as the runaway films. As usual, some carefully crafted baby films have outshone the big guys. Billy Elliot started small and is still selling tickets. At press time, the film's U.S. box office is $16M, barely a star's salary on a studio film, and still growing. The film is nominated for a Golden Globe Best Picture award and rumored to be a candidate for a Best Picture Oscar. Its success has come mainly from word-of-mouth. Another baby film is You Can Count On Me, which tied for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2000. Released in November, the film is slowly building as the distributor increases its movie house presence.

On the moderate-to-high end of the independent spectrum, DreamWork's Gladiator is also a contender for a Golden Globe Best Picture, as is Director Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, which hasn't yet opened as this issue goes to press. Which brings us back to a criticism we hear every year. Films made by heavily financed, larger production companies are not indies. In this publication, they are. If the production isn't controlled by one of the six major U.S. studios, they are independent. A film doesn't have to be edgy or doomed to boxoffice failure to be an independent. It doesn't have to have an indie distributor to be independent. The definition always has been the source of financing. And for all those who decry the commercial success of 1999's The Blair Witch Project, that film will be bringing equity investors into the independent business for years to come.

Digital filmmaking, however, is making slow progress. True, the indie festivals are seeing more entries than ever. However, there are still only 15 digital theaters in the country. But with the economic problems of exhibitors, digital film will not be a real business in our immediate future. And many potential Internet outlets have either shut down abruptly or been taken over by other companies. And many filmmakers seem to have lost their short film product in the chaos. The reason is clear. The business plans either were non-existent or assumed that venture capitalists would support sites indefinitely until sufficient revenue sources magically appeared. Now Web companies must go back to basics and create companies that can survive on their own. Hint: 15-year-olds still spend money at the mall rather than on the Internet.