Easy Rider heralded the New Hollywood. People quibble, but many point to Stranger Than Paradise as the dawn of the American independent movement. With The Blair Witch Project, the film industry discovered the Internet. And now, the stage is set for some enterprising filmmaker to pick up the DVD and shock the system once again.
Two harbinger stories popped up all over the mediascape this week. The first is the slow-burner success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the modestly budgeted crowd-pleaser that has flown in the face of the major studios' summer blockbuster strategy. And the second is the unveiling of Film Movement, a company founded by Shooting Gallery vet Larry Meistrich, and its new distribution model for off-the-beaten-track movies.
Let's start with the Big Fat story. USA Today loves it and so does the New York Times. Who wouldn't. It's a warm and cuddly, come-from-behind winner's tale -- sort of like the story it tells. Made for $5 million, it's already chalked up $60 million.
But for once, the returns aren't the real story. The news hook is that the movie opened small way back in April, has slowly expanded to 1500 screens and is still going strong, even as the gargantuan Hollywood hits of summer have already petered out. "The bottom line is that it's a word-of-mouth film," IFC Films' Bob Berney told indieWIRE in July. It's important, of course, that loads of people love it bunches, but at the same time, IFC kept a tight rein on the movie, rolling it out very slowly, very carefully, making the limitations on their resources work in their favor.
Hold onto that thought as we move to the second story and the second quote, this one taken from the statement Meistrich released announcing Film Movement: "The economics of releasing independent and foreign films have fundamentally changed. As the distribution system has become increasingly hit-driven and the cost of prints and advertising has skyrocketed, too many outstanding films never find the audience they deserve despite critical acclaim and awards from top film festivals."
Frankly, that last bit sounds like the usual elitist yadda-yadda, but the key phrase with regard to those "outstanding films" is "the audience they deserve." On the one hand, Meistrich is onto something. There are people out there with a taste, maybe even a ravishing hunger, for non-mainstream cinematic fare who don't happen to live anywhere near the type of theater that'll show it. In other words, they're not big city folks, despite their cosmopolitan taste.
On the other hand, Meistrich's price of admission is pretty high. The Film Movement plan: For $189 a year or $19.95 a month, you get one -- one -- DVD per month. Granted, that DVD is hand-picked by a panel of 'xperts including Richard Peņa, program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Richard Raddon, director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. But there are a couple of problems here. First, you don't get to pick the film; it just arrives. Second, you probably aren't looking to buy the non-mainstream cinematic fare you've got a ravishing hunger for, but to sample it (e.g., by renting it).
Still, those problems aside (though, to me, they look like major, major stumbling blocks on the road to Film Movement's success), there are two intriguing aspects to what Meistrich has dreamed up here. The means of distribution -- DVD, through the mail -- is meant as an alternative to theatrical release. The first film they've chosen, Spanish director Achero Maņas's El Bola, will never be distributed any other way outside the film festivals where it's already been shown. So -- and here's the second aspect -- all the costs of theatrical release, particularly marketing, are cut out of the loop.
El Bola, of course, is not the first movie to ever make the leap from the lab to the viewer without passing through the movie theaters first. Even before the DVD, we saw the rise of the "straight to video" concept -- but the concept was initially reserved for failures that never set out to be. The studio, in other words, was dumping an unlucky title into the cheapo bins and the rental outlets. Then, when some of those titles did better than expected, came the intentional "straight to video" titles such as Disney's faux sequels to its big hits like Aladdin or The Lion King. Lower budgets, choppier animation, but also profitable. Even so, there's still a stigma here: these aren't the real further adventures of Aladdin or Simba, you might think, since they haven't been given that psychologically important legitimacy of a full-fledged marketing campaign, complete with Happy Meal action figures, and a showing at the mall.
Could this begin to change? Since the advent of the DVD, too, we've seen indie filmmakers go the "straight to DVD" route. "If your picture isn't right for theatrical, try to get a good cable deal, try to get a good DVD deal -- try everything," filmmaker Mark Wilkinson tells Film Threat's Chris Gore. Well, yes, by all means; the problem here is that it still sounds like a desperate, last-ditch attempt at recouping your investment. Same with the self-distributors Gore mentions in passing, the poor filmmakers hawking tapes and DVDs on their own Web sites because they couldn't find a "real" distributor.
Even if it fades to black tomorrow, the one true significant breakthrough Film Movement has accomplished is the busting of that psychological barrier. These are "outstanding films" with stamps of approval from the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles Film Festival! And they are not ashamed to go "straight to DVD"; indeed, Meistrich is telling you he's doing something very good and fine for the art of cinema. And who knows, maybe that classy price attached to each title will offer a certain mystique to joining his club.
So here's my argument: that psychological barrier is about to dry up and blow away altogether. DVD has made the home viewing experience actually better than what you'll get at many screens at the local multiplex, and sadly, some old, run-down repertory theaters as well. Going to the movies will undoubtedly remain a big social deal for the foreseeable future, but in many ways, watching the DVD at home will become less and less a second choice.
Then there are the numbers. DVD players in a third of all US households. DVD sales surpassing video cassette sales. Or, to go straight to the sales pitch of Warren Lieberfarb, president of Warner Home Video: "It is the most successful home entertainment device in history. In five years, it has gone from zero to 30 million households, and a quarter of those have more than one DVD player. Nothing else has come close to doing that in such a short time, not CD's, not VCR's, not personal computers, not even television itself."
Meanwhile, the theatrical release has only become more of a headache for the major studios. How can that be in this, the biggest movie-going summer ever? Because the sheer number of event pictures is also making this the most competitive summer ever -- even as genuine, honest-to-goodness blockbusters can actually cost a studio more than it makes back. Big stars, and more and more often, big directors take a hefty chunk of cash up front and a hefty chunk of the profits. Add the marketing necessary to make the movie an event in the first place and, as the studios are discovering, their bottom line isn't very eventful at all.
A studio exec sweating out the final weekend of the summer, hoping he'll actually see something for all the efforts he put into, say, Men in Black II after it was king of the world for the July 4 weekend and then sank may look over at My Big Fat Greek Wedding with a deep, dark sense of envy. In the same way that Microsoft has been known to subsume the innovations of lighter, quicker dotcoms, studios are known to have a way of picking up on independent film's ever-rejuvenating bag of tricks.
It simply cannot be very long before the next trick to pop out of that bag is the DVD-only smash hit. The word-of-mouth wonder that rolls out slowly, carefully and ends up playing on millions of household screens from coast to coast.
Some argue that without theatrical release, a film won't get reviewed and that without that free but vital publicity, it doesn't stand a chance. But very, very few electronic games are ever reviewed by the New York Times. And yet the gaming industry is bigger than the movie industry. Gamers know where to go for their new and reviews. What's more: games don't get theatrical release.
Maybe, just maybe, that DVD-only smash hit will make innovative use of the DVD as a medium. We already have alternative endings. Deleted scenes, recovered. If the viewer could play with these... well, yes, going down this road, we could end up perilously close to that dead-end, "interactive narrative." But there may be other aspects of making a film specifically for DVD that would spark a creative imagination. Or not. A great film just might be enough.
Digital technology has already put the means of production within the reach of a whole new generation of filmmakers who are filling spots vacated by more established indie filmmakers moving on to Indiewood. Digital technology could well make it possible for this new generation to reach out and grab the means of distribution as well.
In light of what I consider to be an intriguing new development, I've started a new discussion topic on all this. Drop by and let us know what you think.
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