Indie distributors discuss 'State of Theatrical' at DOC NYC

By Sarah Sluis

One thing quickly became clear at yesterday's "State of Theatrical" panel at DOC NYC. It's impossible to talk about theatrical releases today without also talking about digital. Even with a digital panel occurring directly after the theatrical discussion, talk of VOD, Netflix, Hulu, and upstarts like Constellation were used as reference and comparison points.

No one seemed ready to give up on theatrical in the panel, which included Mark Boxer from IFC, Emily Russo from Zeitgeist, Matt Cowal from Magnolia and Ryan Krivoshey from Cinema Guild. Russo noted several times throughout the discussion that Zeitgeist does not view theatrical as a loss leader for later television or DVD sales, as many in the industry do. Their small company, which releases just 5-6 titles a year, has to try to make money on each movie. It's about "managing expectations," she says, doing "what we feel we can spend to support" a release. Boxer also noted that spends can always be expanded later in the game, citing Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work as an example. IFC expected the documentary to do $1 million. It ended up brining in $3 million, and more support was given to the film as it exceeded expectations.

Documentaries just don't earn as much as feature films, so what constitutes success in the documentary market? It turns out, more are successful than you think. Russo stated that half-million is a great number for a documentary to receive on the theatrical market, and everyone else on the panel agreed. Zeitgeist's third-highest grossing movie ever, Bill Cunningham New York is still playing at the IFC Center where the discussion was held. It's been out 33 weeks. Russo attributed the movie's $1.5 million take to date to the "humanism" of Cunningham's character, and the fact that it showcased New York, New Yorkers, and lovers of fashion--the last a particularly easy-to-reach group online.

Bad reviews are the Achilles' heel for small docs that rely on positive critical response, but even worse is no review. The group talked about how they "die a little inside" every time a small town's film critic is laid off. When that happens, the paper will often reprint a review from another paper--most often The New York Times. For Magnolia's release Page One: Inside the New York Times, which was trashed by both that paper and the Los Angeles Times, that proved to be damaging. Cowal said they were able to get many other papers to run reprints of reviews besides the Times' for Page One, but a good review from the Times could have turned so-so business in the Big Apple into a blockbuster release.

Concurrent VOD/theatrical releaes are becoming more common. IFC does simultaneous VOD and theatrical releases for certain titles. Magnolia selects some releases to be available on VOD and iTunes one month before their theatrical release. When a documentary is only available in New York City anyway, this allows more viewers easy access to the title. It also provides lots of free advertising from cable companies and iTunes. The IFC and Magnolia reps talked about how titles that are "currently in theatres" or doing "pre-theatrical runs" get favorable placement and often free ads on the cable company's barker channel simply because they are using such a window. On the flip side, Boxer noted that they did not do simultaneous VOD for Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Buck because big theatre chains will not touch those movies if they're already on-demand. In general, Boxer felt that the big chains were more than willing to work with IFC. Since Cave of Forgotten Dreams was in 3D, Boxer's team had to ask a lot of theatres to give up a screen reserved for Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.

When it comes to simultaneous VOD/theatrical releases, these small distributors are the vanguard. Boxer cited the recent, failed attempt to release Tower Heist on VOD shortly after its release as an example of studios unable to do what these tiny distributors are already doing regularly. Though that failed due to pushback from major exhibitors, "in the future, they'll be in that space," Boxer said confidently. For many exhibitors, though, that reality is their worst fear.

DOC NYC continues through Nov. 10. Check the schedule of events here.

Big weekend release 'Watchmen' ticks off critics

By Sarah Sluis

The only wide opening this weekend, everyone is going to be watching the Watchmen on one of the 3,611 screens in its release. Zack Snyder's adaptation of the epic comic book recently outsold the advance

tickets purchased for 300, the film whose $70.9 million opening weekend set a March record While the movie will certainly open big, and has the saturation press coverage to support its debut, people who have actually seen the movie have surprisingly uniform complaints.

First and foremost, it's all surface area and no depth. It tries to cover everything but can't spend enough time with a scene to allow us to get emotionally invested in the narrative or characters. Various ways this can be said include:

"Ironically, the problem with the screenplay isn't that the writers leave too much out�it's that they cram too much in."--Ethan Alter, FJI
"[To] a mid-80s college softmore...the dense involution of the narrative might have seemed exhilarating rather than exhausting." --A.O. Scott, NY Times
"Yet even Watchmen fanatics may be doomed to a disappointment that results from trying to stay this faithful to a comic book...He doesn't move the camera or let the scenes breathe. He crams the film with bits and pieces, trapping his actors like bugs wriggling in the frame."--Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Almost as universal as the cry that Snyder has tried to include too much, is the feeling that the film is too long. I actually feel that if Snyder "let the scenes breathe," as Gleiberman advised, Watchmen would have felt shorter. With a two-hour, forty-minute running time, we end up pondering over the previous scene as the next is already halfway over, pulling us further out of the story. My screening audience was fairly fidgety, especially during the film's last legs. The Blackberry-checking was ever-present, but I like to think the presence of light pollution (my pet peeve) is more related to the manners of those sitting next to me than the actual quality of the film.

A.O. Scott, echoing the complaints of many, also finds the film's 1980s Cold War nihilism an artifact, no longer a part of the cultural zeitgeist. Perhaps this is true for those who lived through those years, but

the 18-25s who were Eighties babies and think that the excessive graffiti is set design, not an actual reflection of reality, don't fall in that category. Sure, the social commentary is more suited to a period twenty years ago, but that doesn't make it less interesting...as a historical artifact.

One last problem I had was the utter obviousness of the musical choices. These were songs straight out of Forrest Gump, the go-to songs of a generation, and just another example of the lack of depth and overstuffed nature of the film. Even A.O. Scott devoted a few words to a particularly overused musical choice, Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah:"

"(By the way, can we please have a moratorium on the use of this song in movies? Yes, I too have heard there was a secret chord that David played, and blah blah blah, but I don't want to hear it again. Do you?)"

On that note, I'd like to add that the Jeff Buckley version of this song appeared on literally every teen soap opera a couple years ago, sapping the song of any claim to novelty. Along with "Hallelujah" there's Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin,'" "The Sound of Silence," and "99 Luftballoons." Ironic use of "Unforgettable" by Nat "King" Cole? Check. These are songs we have heard again and again, and signs of a huge musical budget blown by hitting only the most obvious notes.

My conclusion: Watchmen will open big, but it will be a huge embarrassment if it doesn't break 300's opening. After opening weekend, word-of-mouth can't be good on this thing. People will see it to see it, but they're not going to be bugging their friends to see it too, and they're not going to go back more than once.

Co-creator of Watchmen Alan Moore took his name off the film, wanting no money, no credit, nothing to do with a project he dubbed "unfilmable." Like his character the Comedian, he's having the last laugh.