Angry Nikki Finke Commenters Rally in Mini-Major's Defense
Some things should just be off-limits -- even for Nikki Finke, who interrupted a relatively minor news break on Tuesday to take swipes at one of the most respected film distributors in the world. And in an especially rare counterattack, Finke's readers stood up to her.
Sony Pictures Classics, whose only real mistake in the last 24 hours was approving this poster for Whatever Works, drew a personal foul for reupping its co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard and hiring a new PR firm to represent the label. "Compared to Peter Rice's Fox Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics has done its business in the dark," Finke wrote, slapping it with the "faux indie" epithet for good measure. "Meaning the place has been clueless about getting attention for itself and even its Oscar-nominated films for years."
In a way, she's right; compared to Searchlight since at least 2006, everyone has done its business in the dark. But if you're looking for the one remaining distributor that still invests heavily in documentary and foreign-language cinema -- with an emphasis on theatrical, not dumped on DVD or on-demand -- while maintaining one of the most reliably profitable front offices in the business, Sony Classics is pretty much it. Last I checked, an Oscar nomination was notice for one's film. Like Frozen River? Two noms and $2.5 million domestically for a Sundance winner with no name actors? And don't these guys release Pedro Almodóvar's films? Why are we even discussing this?
Anyway, SPC doesn't need me to defend them, because in a weird bit of backlash, Nikki's comments section -- the North Korea of the blogosphere -- took care of her on its own:
· Why 'faux indie' Nikki? SPC has bought and promoted small and foreign films for years, in purest indie spirit, regardless where their backing comes from. I don't understand your little jab there.
· SPC should be lauded. They're the only studio-backed specialized distributor that picks up foreign films, and limited-appeal-but-interesting indies like SYNECHDOCHE,NY, [sic] TYSON, etc. Save the snark for those who deserve it.
· What are you talking about? You must really not care about movies at all. Sony Classics is a real indie, picking up small movies and distributing them appropriately. They didn't try to get into the shit genre business or spiral out of control with over-bids on Sundance audience buzz pictures that were never really any good. If they are changing their PR strategy a bit, great... but I hope they stay who they are.
· All SPC has to do is keep doing what they do. Lesher fell for "the trap" of PR, glitz, huge overhead and unprofitable with Vantage and ran it into the ground. Barker and Bernard are the guardians of specialty film now and should be commended - if only for taking the risk of acquiring Synechdoche [sic]
Hey! That's right -- no SPC, no Synecdoche, New York, the best film of 2008. Get me rewrite.
· Sony Classics Plans To Step Up Profile [DHD]
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Comments
While some may consider SPC as perfect just the way it is, in this economy, they need to sell their movies. I'm not saying that they should try to make everyone a blockbuster, but they should aim for a profit at least. It's better for the company, and the films they acquire.
Too many of the "indie" divisions of major studios were run solely to woo critics, win awards, and get their executives invited to the classier parties. Now most of them are gone, leaving SPC and Fox Searchlight as the last men standing.
It's not impossible to make non-mainstream films profitable. Remember Gandhi? An unknown stage actor in the lead, subject matter that very few American moviegoers fully understood, and it was a period drama set in a distant country folks didn't know much about.
No one else would touch it, but Columbia bought it, and made it into an Oscar sweeping success. Chiefly because they put the work into selling it.
In Nikki's defense (which is something I never thought I'd say), I'd disagree with the argument that SPC has "an emphasis on theatrical, not dumped on DVD or on-demand" with their films. They're dumping "Moon" in TWO cities?! Slashfilm has a good rundown of SPC's theatrical blunders: http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/01/26/sony-pictures-classics-to-buybury-the-wackness/
Sorry, Ghandi? That's your example of a profitable indie movie? A massive epic directed by Richard Attenborough?
Thanks, guy.
Biff, out of curiosity, where are you getting that SPC is "dumping" Moon in two cities? Most SPC movies open in Los Angeles and New York opening weekend, and then expand into other markets as the reviews and box office numbers support further expansion. Hell, that's how most indie distributors have been doing it for decades.
Re GANDHI, it could be said that Columbia Pictures had a fetish in the early 80s for prestige films that could be marketed like, say, the works of David Lean. Another example of this was Roman Polanski's TESS, which didn't do too badly at the US boxoffice.
I'm a fan of SPC and its leadership but the problem with this article is that Synecdoche, New York was one of the Top 10 WORST movies of last year. Yikes! Stu, do you really see yourself popping that DVD in anytime soon? It was torturous!
@Biff Bronson: Yeah, Ed's right about the platforming. It's a 20 cities/100 screens kind of proposition. And they don't have their own on-demand service, so that whole B.S. "2 million subscribers" card that IFC plays with producers (when maybe a few thousand watch in the end) isn't an option.
@The Insneider: Since you mention it, yes, I will watch it this weekend! Thanks for the inspiration.
@John MSorry, Ghandi? That's your example of a profitable indie movie? A massive epic directed by Richard Attenborough?
Actually, Gandhi was done independently by a partnership between Goldcrest Films, Attenborough himself, who sold or mortgaged most of his art collection to pay his end, and had some cooperation from the Indian government, allowing them spectacle far beyond the film's budget (about $20 million half of what was considered "epic budget" back then). But I was actually making more of point about selling something that was outside the mainstream.
The early 80s was the age of Stallone, Spielberg, and other action-adventure heavy, all-American movies. A movie about a skinny Hindu guy in glasses winning through pacifism, was the direct opposite of most Hollywood movies at the time. Columbia took a risk at losing their investment, but their clever marketing, publicity, and release campaigns made it more than just "prestige Oscar bait" into a very profitable movie for all involved.
Indie films can be sold, and sold well. It's all about finding the audience, and getting them to want to see the movie.
@Furious D: You raise some good points, though I do think we're talking about apples and oranges in terms of era, pedigree, and resources. To the extent that the '80s were a golden age for the blockbuster, they were also the beginning of the end of the majors' Oscar monopoly. Terms of Endearment and Rain Man (and maybe Platoon?) were total flukes against the Prestige Historical Epics that surrounded them. Gandhi was one of those, quite deliberately so, in an era when studios were actively -- nay, systemically -- rewarded for that ambition.
Which is no reflection on its pedigree or quality, which is inarguably high. Still, by the early '90s, when the Orions and the Miramaxes etc. had shown how fragile that monopoly was (and spent a lot of money to do it), the majors spun off specialty labels like SPC to cherry pick the acquisitions they were too top-heavy to develop on their own. And love it or hate it, that's still the model that works -- see SPC and Searchlight in particular. Vantage, Picturehouse, and WIP tried to play both fields and got killed. For every Milk or Brokeback, Focus flubs a Sin Nombre or Talk to Me. Harvey's basically running a library these days; so is Miramax. What's left?