December 28, 2016, California, USA – “Banking on Bitcoin” a feature film on Bitcoin, its history and future is set to be released on January 6, 2017. Produced by Gravitas Ventures, the film will be launched at select theatres and will also be made available on VOD.
The “Banking on Bitcoin” film covers the most disruptive digital invention since the Internet. It follows the ideological battle underway between fringe utopists and mainstream capitalism. An in-depth coverage of key players in the space including Charlie Shrem, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Barry Silbert, Erik Voorhees, Nathanial Popper, Alex Winter and more gives an insight into how they think this revolutionary cryptocurrency technology will shape our lives.
“Our production has excelled in more ways than we could ever have anticipated,” Said David Guy Levy. He added, “With the material we’ve managed to produce, and the interviews we’ve procured, we hope that the audience will find the final piece as engaging and thought-provoking as we do,”
Bitcoin is one of the controversial creations of technology that is set to change the world. Its early pioneers sought to blur the lines of sovereignty and the financial status quo that has been around for ages. After years of underground development, Bitcoin grabbed the attention of curious public — as well as the ire of the regulators the technology had subverted. Yet after landmark arrests of prominent cybercriminals. Bitcoin, which surged on election night and recently peaked at over $900 per BTC, still faces its most severe adversary; the very banks it was built to destroy.
Considering the subject of film and the personalities featured in it, the film’s director is available for an interview by media houses and publications to clarify the vision and purpose behind the making of “Banking on Bitcoin”. The production team is also willing to entertain requests for an interview with the Winklevoss twins. The “Banking on Bitcoin” film’s trailers can be watched on Gravitas Ventures’ YouTube channel and the film us already available to pre-order on iTunes.
About Gravitas Ventures
Gravitas Ventures is a leading all rights distributor of independent cinema. Founded in 2006, Gravitas connects independent filmmakers and producers with distribution opportunities across the globe. Working with more than 500 content partners, Gravitas Ventures has distributed thousands of films into over 100 million homes. Their most recent releases include Jonathan Hock’s “Fastball,” Colin Hanks’ “All Things Must Pass,” “Being Evel” from Academy Award® winning director Daniel Junge and producer Johnny Knoxville, “Backstreet Boys: Show ‘Em What You’re Made Of,” director Adam Nimoy’s documentary, “For The Love of Spock,” Richard Branson’s harrowing tale, “Don’t Look Down,” and Katie Holmes’s feature directorial debut, “All We Had.”
For more information, please visit gravitasventures.com, follow @GravitasVOD on Twitter and @gravitasventures on Instagram.
Gravitas Ventures is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.
LOS ANGELES, December 25, 2016 (FlexyMovies) – As Awards season approaches the Oscars, and titles like ‘Manchester by the Sea’ and ‘Hell or High Water’ advance among Academy’s favorites, international sales and distribution professionals like Alessandro Masi declare that luckily “there’s always going to be demand for independent movies, somewhere and somehow”.
A supporter of innovation for the entertainment industry and passionate business developer, Masi started his career in digital strategy and moved on through film and television financing, production, marketing, acquisitions, international sales and distribution between Milan, Rome, London, New York City, and Los Angeles, where he currently lives.
Alessandro has devised sales strategies for television giants Zodiak and FremantleMedia and leading international film sales outlets Sierra/Affinity, Carnaby International, Myriad Pictures, implemented marketing and distribution strategies for domestic distributors Gathr Films and Cohen Media, conducted digital strategy for major entertainment properties and brands at Italia Brand Group, advised on profitable venture capital financing for digital and entertainment at TMT Advisors, turned around into profit Own Air – one of the first VOD businesses in Europe – while providing market access, advising on financing and acquisitions, developing and implementing world wide sales and distribution strategies for quality filmed content engaging audiences with Smart Moviegoing™ experiences with his startup FlexyMovies™.
He has played a critical role monetizing and marketing successfully – attending all the major markets and festivals such as AFM, TIFF, Cannes/Marché, Berlin/EFM, Sundance, AFI Fest, MIPCOM, NATPE, besides events like CinemaCon, CineEurope, NABShow, ComicCon, Licensing Expo –global television successes like ‘Wife Swap’, The Fugitive Chronicles’, ‘American Gods’, ‘The Young Pope’, award-winning and breakthrough box-office hits such as ‘Enter the Void’, ‘Italy: Love It, or Leave It’, ‘Goodbye Solo’, Wendy and Lucy’, ‘Beyond the Mask’, ‘Girl Rising’, ‘Margin Call’, ‘Jeepers Creepers’, ‘Barney Thomson’, ‘Mustang’, ‘Kids in Love’, ‘Rise of the Footsoldier’, and current Oscars contenders like ‘The Salesman’, ‘Hell or High Water’, ‘Captain Fantastic’, ‘Manchester by the Sea’.
According to Masi, “people will want to see movies like ‘Captain Fantastic’ or ‘Manchester by the Sea’ even in 100 years from now, there’s always going to be demand for independent movies, somewhere and somehow. Festivals will continue to play a key role in the game. But the industry has the duty to be less risk-averse, experiment, perhaps fail badly, but get those stories on some kind of – large, small, 5.5-inch, or VR headsets – screen and then find smart ways to reach those audiences. Everything is changing so quickly and flexibility is key. It’s a very exciting time to be in entertainment”.
Masi is also a regular panelist as expert in digital business models and film distribution and a member of the jury assigning the awards at the first and most prominent festival in the world for digital content, the LA Web Fest, as well as at the Rio Web West, Berlin Web Fest, Roma Web Fest, Roma Tre Film Festival, Francofilm.
As a producer overseeing distribution, he was awarded the Italian Golden Globe for best documentary feature in 2013 for ‘Suicide Italy’ and has produced with an award-winning crew a high-concept sci-fi short named ‘Phenomenon’ as transmedia proof-of-concept for feature and series.
Born in Potenza, Italy, he earned a BS in Business Economics from University of Siena with a thesis on movie marketing featuring – thanks to a close collaboration with Sony Pictures – a case study on the marketing strategy for the Spider-Man franchise, an MS in Media Management from Bocconi University with a thesis on business models for web TV which foresees the exponential growth of digital video and SVOD in particular, an MBA from Hult International Business School, and a Certificate in Business of Entertainment from UCLA.
“I think my father is the one to “blame” above anything or anyone else for my attachment to cinema. He is a great connoisseur and lover of the seventh art and owns a huge collection of classic movies that we used to watch at home with my family and we also went often to the movie theatre” says Masi, whose favorite movie is ‘Cinema Paradiso’ because “it was one of the first movies I saw in a theater and I also feel close to its protagonist, Totò, who falls in love with the movies in his childhood and decides to dedicate his life to cinema”.
“I want to keep distributing high quality filmed content and ensure that art makes sense financially. I want to provide people around the world with great entertainment and empower the work of exceptional creatives who are able to make that people have fun, dream, fall in love, and think about society, sometimes, as it happens in ‘Captain Fantastic’, for instance” concludes Masi.
Media Contact Company Name: FlexyMovies Contact Person: Marianna Mollica Email: press@flexymovies.com Phone: 310-948-6270 Country: United States Website:http://www.imdb.me/alemasit
One of the major Achilles’ heels for film producers and directors is the distribution game. Once you’ve made your movie, what do you do? How do you play the game? What strategies do you employ? Is there even a strategy?
Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is there are indeed strategies to use and employ. The bad news is that most filmmakers don’t know what they are, and flounder around trying to figure them out. What’s even worse is too many filmmakers throwing in the towel and just dumping their film online, hoping it “hits” somehow.
Myth #1: I’m a director, a filmmaker, a creative person. Telling stories is my thing and if I make a good movie, I don’t have to worry about the business stuff or the marketing because someone else will do that.
Truth #1: There are of course some people who get lucky and either have a producing partner who does all the business & marketing (and is good at it), or they have the money to hire the right people to do everything.
However for most this isn’t the case, especially if one’s film career is in the early stages. You need to become a businessperson once your movie or documentary is done. At least until it’s sold (or until you’re done selling if you’re DIY’ing it).
Why?
Because distribution is business, and distributors don’t care if you’ve made the greatest indie film/art film/documentary of the past 20 years. What they care about is if it will make them money. (And your audience, if you’re DIY’ing your film, needs to believe they’ll be sufficiently entertained and/or enlightened before they’ll buy a DVD or pay to watch it online.) The more you can become a “salesperson” and marketing maven, the more success you will have on your quest for distribution or sales.
Yes, I know this part isn’t nearly as sexy and fun as making movies and can be downright boring at times. But what Orson Welles famously said about the film business is still true today: “It’s about 2% moviemaking and 98% hustling.”
Myth #2: Distributors are calling me and they’re excited to see my movie! I’ll send it to them and if they like it, they’ll acquire it!
Truth #2: All major distributors track the movies that have been listed in the trades under their production columns. If you were in those columns, you’re going to be phoned. Do not send them a rough cut. Do not send them a final cut. Do not send them the movie. If you do, you will not get a theatrical distribution deal, if this is what you are aiming for.
You must “unveil” your movie in the right place at the right time, such as a top film festival, to get the theatrical buyers to really want your feature. Movies do not get picked up for theatrical releases that have been sent on a DVD to a distributor. So when they call asking to see a screener, you’ll say “It’s not ready, but I appreciate your call. Check back with me in a month or two.” (And you’ll do this every time they call, until you’re ready for the grand unveiling.)
Myth #3: My movie was selected for the Sundance Film Festival! Woohooo! All I have to do is show up and I will get a deal!
Truth #3: Okay, you won the lottery and got a slot at one of the top three film festivals (Sundance, Toronto, Cannes) for your movie premiere. Guess what? Your work hasn’t even begun yet. You now must assemble a team of people: a PR firm, an agent from one of the top agencies in Los Angeles, an attorney, and possibly a producer’s rep. (But beware…most producer’s reps are useless.)
You will have to work, strategize and position your movie, before it premieres, as a very desirable movie that distributors must have. You have one shot at the top festivals for a theatrical deal, so don’t piss it away. Unfortunately, most filmmakers don’t know or understand this. They get a slot at Sundance or Toronto, don’t assemble a team or promote their film properly, and then come away without a deal and are entirely lost as to their next step.
Myth #4: I was rejected by the top festivals, so now I’m submitting and getting accepted by the next tier of festivals. This is cool. All I have to do is show up to my screenings and I’m treated like a rock star. Distribution, here I come!
Truth #4: Yeah, okay, if this is you, at least you’re having fun. But you’re not going to get distribution this way. There is a real purpose to the festival circuit beyond the top festivals that most people, even Hollywood veterans, simply do not understand. The obvious purpose is, of course, exposure. But there is actually a MORE important purpose: Building a Pedigree.
What is a Pedigree?
It is an accumulation of press coverage, interviews, quotes from critics, and awards if you can get them, which says you have a winning movie on your hands. Once you methodically build this pedigree, which takes some work on the festival circuit, you are then ready to parlay this into a distribution deal (or healthy sales). It’s a simple concept that most do not grasp; yet it is extremely powerful and effective for independent films that don’t get into the top festivals. There is real psychology involved in the “art” of selling a movie or documentary. Ignore at your own risk. However, if you learn this “art,” you will have success.
Myth #5: I’ve submitted my movie to the 15 home video companies out there. I’ve even talked to producer friends and looked at industry reference books for whom to submit to. If these 15 companies say ‘No,’ I’m out of luck for a home video deal.
Truth #5: This truth right here may be worth serious dollars to you. There are literally over 100 home video companies in the marketplace, all operating under their own labels. On top of that are additional companies that pick up movies and programming that have output deals with these distributors. So if you think you’ve exhausted your search for a home video deal and have only contacted a handful of companies, you’ve simply just begun.
And don’t buy the occasional diatribe out there that DVD is dead. It’s not. It is still the largest revenue generating segment of the entire film industry. Last year alone, it generated $16-17 billion in revenues. That’s billion with a ‘B.’
Myth #6: I’m going to bypass traditional distribution altogether, sell my movie on the internet myself and make a ton of money from DVD sales and digital streaming (VOD).
Truth #6: Not likely. For every 5000 movies being made every year, there are less than 20 who make serious money this way. WHY? It’s hard work. It takes time (a lot of it), it takes specific strategies, and you become the de facto distributor for a good year, if not longer. Which isn’t an exciting proposition for most filmmakers, who’ve already been on a lengthy and arduous journey of making their film.
However, some who go this route do it very successfully. They’re either great at marketing already, or great learners. And they’re very committed to achieving success, so they really do what it takes to win. Also, the budget of your movie can dictate if this route is viable for you. If you’ve made a $10,000 movie, it’s not that difficult to recoup this amount, with some decent work. But if your budget was $1 million, good luck making your money back using only the internet. You’ll either need traditional distribution, or a hybrid approach of both traditional and non-traditional.
So these are a few of the popular and misleading myths out there, and the truth about them. With 5000 (or more) movies being made every single year, that’s a lot of producers and directors working with often erroneous information. Not to mention an overwhelming number of movies vying for a limited number of distribution slots. These two factors combined can make for a daunting journey filled with frustration and failure.
The silver lining however, is that with the right knowledge, coupled with dedicated and diligent work, anyone with a decent film can achieve success. Anyone. But it does take the right knowledge. You do not have to have star names in your movie to get a deal or have success, and your movie does not have to be phenomenal. If it’s at least decent, you do have a real shot.
In just four years, Netflix has become by far the most watched destination for documentaries, beaming titles to 190 countries and an astounding 83 million global subscribes.
That has given Netflix a lot of power in a relatively small corner of Hollywood to make or break titles — and for one director, that meant a dramatic setback in his movie’s release.
Netflix’s decision to come in early on documentaries like “The Square,” “Virunga,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and “Winter on Fire” led to Oscar nominations, while recent titles like “Making a Murderer” and “Amanda Knox” have fed subscribers’ addiction for true-crime stories.
As Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, boasted in 2015, “People who have never watched a documentary in their life are watching them on Netflix.” And the Netflix Original branding has become an instant stamp of legitimacy for filmmakers.
But what’s less talked about, beyond the mountains of cash Netflix dishes out for premium content, is when a filmmaker inevitably decides he or she doesn’t want to make a deal with Netflix.
It may not happen often, but in one case, turning down a Netflix Original deal seemingly led a filmmaker’s movie to be blacklisted from ever being shown on the streaming giant.
A Netflix deal gone bad
Much of what you hear about Netflix’s nonfiction (as opposed to the TV series division) is that it gives immense freedom to artists. Werner Herzog told Business Insider of making “Into the Inferno” for Netflix: “They saw the film and liked it and that was that. They trusted me in a way that was very, very pleasant.” The “Amanda Knox” codirectors told Business Insider that the leeway Netflix gave them was a “giant luxury.”
So when Craig Atkinson got the attention of Netflix, he thought he had made it to the big time.
Best known for working as a cinematographer with Oscar-nominated filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Atkinson in 2013 decided to embark on his directorial debut, “Do Not Resist,” in which he examines the militarization of the police in the US. Atkinson spent three years shooting around the country, gaining the trust of law enforcement so he could tell a vérité story.
But the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of Michael Brown by the police changed everything. Atkinson, 34, and his producer Laura Hartrick, 28, visited and captured footage of the tactics used by riot-gear-dressed officers that was more raw and unfiltered than what the evening news had been showing.
“Do Not Resist” was suddenly covering a topical story. And as Atkinson was in postproduction before the movie’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, Netflix came calling.
“The Saturday before the premiere I got a call from one of the executives at Netflix,” Atkinson told Business Insider. (He asked that the Netflix executive remain anonymous for this story.) “We spoke at great length about the project, the person said it was an incredibly timely film, and they were interested in it.”
Director Craig Atkinson.Tiffany Frances
The next day, Atkinson got a call from the same executive saying that Netflix wanted to make an offer to buy the film and brand it as a Netflix Original title, but the person asked whether Atkinson would be open to making changes to his film.
“I was still unsure about the film,” Atkinson said. “I didn’t think we made a perfect film, so I was open to collaboration, but the person told me the deal couldn’t be made until I said I was open to this, so I said OK because I wanted to see what the deal was going to be.”
On Monday, Atkinson received the offer from Netflix. He and his team were going to premiere at Tribeca on Thursday, and if they were to accept the deal, the offer stated they would have to agree by noon on the day of the film’s premiere or the offer would be null and void.
The deal for worldwide rights to the film was in the mid-six figures, and the agreement stated that Netflix would retain all creative approvals over the final cut and the film’s title. It also had a budget line of $70,000 for “finishing” (money for additional editing or other changes Netflix saw fit).
These are general terms most first-time filmmakers will encounter at any company looking to buy their film. Numerous filmmakers told Business Insider, however, that there’s often an open dialogue between the filmmaker and the buyer about suggested changes before signing an agreement. Negotiations can, of course, vary from filmmaker to filmmaker, especially based on someone’s experience and profile.
“So I’m reading the deal and it doesn’t specify changes,” Atkinson said. “It says that they have full control and they can change the title. The deal is time-stamped for high noon on the day of our premiere, so now the clock is ticking. In my mind I’m thinking maybe they are catering to a certain audience and they want to change the film. I was so overwhelmed and unprepared to be in this position.”
‘Trust us’
Atkinson was unable to land a sales rep, which at this point in a movie’s life is an essential ingredient (though he was able to get an entertainment lawyer).
Sales reps have an understanding of the marketplace and use their connections within the industry to get the film they’re representing the best deal both domestically and internationally. A rep would have told Atkinson that the figure he was offered was substantially higher than what he would get from any of the independent film distributors that would be tracking his film at the Tribeca Film Festival, or from a documentary-heavy network like HBO or A&E.
Atkinson told Business Insider that colleagues in the industry who have either worked with Netflix or know people who have worked with the company told him that Netflix was giving him a low offer.
Business Insider spoke with documentary insiders and sales agents who agreed that it was a low offer by Netflix standards but respectable for a first-time filmmaker (some filmmakers Business Insider spoke with said they would have taken the deal in a heartbeat).
With the deadline for the deal quickly approaching, Atkinson’s lawyer, Jody Simon, a partner at the firm Fox Rothschild, was able to negotiate the price of the movie up $100,000 more, but the lawyer also relayed to Atkinson a sobering fact about how Netflix negotiates.
“During the course of the conversation our lawyer had with the Netflix lawyer, he got a lecture, as he described it, from the Netflix lawyer about the fee because he was pushing back about how it seemed incredibly low for an all-rights deal,” Atkinson said. “The Netflix lawyer lectured him on how it was their algorithm that determined the price of the film and that there’s really no discussion to be had because this algorithm determined how much the film should be worth and that basically was the end of discussion.”
Simon confirmed the content of the conversation with Netflix’s lawyer to Business Insider, adding that it was the first time he’d encountered a deal figure put together by an algorithm. Still, he said, he’s not surprised by it.
“I find it as a culture clash between the tech people and the creative people,” Simon said. “They really just do things differently — Hulu and Amazon and Netflix. They draft differently. A lot of it is inside baseball and pretty subtle, but it’s a different approach and a different way of thinking.”
When asked for a comment about Atkinson’s recounting of events, a Netflix representative told Business Insider: “Every deal at Netflix is unique — we have no comment about the specifics of our deal negotiations.”
The negotiation with Netflix was a sobering reality for Atkinson, who was getting his first taste of the way the company uses its analytics to make decisions that at traditional distributors often come through gut instinct and decades of trial and error. (Numerous sources in the acquisitions field told Business Insider they did have data they refer to when choosing movies to acquire but did not rely on it heavily.)
It wasn’t just the money that concerned Atkinson, however. He could never get the Netflix executive to give him specifics on what the company wanted to change in his film.
Atkinson filming “Do Not Resist” in Ferguson, Missouri.Vanish Films
“I have student loans to pay off, so the money would have been great,” Atkinson said. “But the bottom line was if we couldn’t put in some kind of provision where we mutually agree on changes, it’s a deal-breaker.”
Atkinson’s inability to relinquish control of his film had to do greatly with the way he got access to make “Do Not Resist.” Atkinson, the son of a police officer, and Hartrick promised the multiple law-enforcement agencies featured in the movie that the film would be an authentic portrayal of their job and that only the two filmmakers would edit the movie.
“So here we are again looking at this contract where I have to make a decision,” Atkinson said. “If I’m going to compromise myself and say I don’t care what I told these cops, just so I can get the deal. And I thought we were going to have a sympathetic ear because of the severity of the situation and it has to do with people’s safety, and when we asked to just put in the contract specific changes you want so we can go forward, they wouldn’t do that.”
“Their response to that was basically, ‘Trust us,'” Simon said.
After two sleepless nights, Atkinson finally told Simon on Wednesday to tell Netflix he was declining the offer. Atkinson would see what kind of offers the film would get from playing at Tribeca.
‘There’s only one way in’
“Do Not Resist” had five sold-out screenings at the Tribeca Film Festival and was beginning to find interest from distributors. Atkinson still couldn’t find a sales agent to take it on (he later found a sales rep to handle his international sales).
Atkinson accepting the best documentary prize at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.Cindy Ord/Getty
During the festival, Atkinson sat down with companies like Magnolia Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Films to discuss potentially acquiring “Do Not Resist.” The possibility of the movie still getting on Netflix wasn’t dead, as any company that acquired the movie would have service deals with Netflix to make it available to stream on the service following its theatrical and home-video release.
On top of that, the movie won the best documentary prize at the festival: a $20,000 cash prize sponsored by … Netflix.
But Atkinson came back down to earth when he learned after the festival that suddenly all the prospective buyers of the movie pulled out. He said he was told that Netflix blocks any service deals for movies on the streaming platform after they have turned down Netflix Original deals. Buyers told Atkinson that in today’s market, in which being on Netflix and other streaming services is so important, his movie was no longer an attractive title because a company could no longer own all revenue streams.
Netflix did not comment when asked by Business Insider about a policy of blacklisting titles that reject an Original deal, or whether requiring creative control over its Original documentaries was standard.
“Around that time I saw the [Netflix] executive at a party and I said, ‘What happened?’ And the person answered, ‘Yep, there’s only one way in,'” Atkinson said.
‘Is this how it goes down?’
Two months after the Tribeca Film Festival, and still trying to forget the bad taste from the Netflix experience, Atkinson moved forward by putting together a self-distribution theatrical release for “Do Not Resist.” He also began a conversation with Amazon to be the film’s home for a streaming release afterward.
Then suddenly Netflix contacted him again.
“I get a text from the Netflix executive,” Atkinson said. “The person wanted to know if I had sold the rights to the film yet because they are still interested. The person felt bad for how everything went down and saw how great the film was doing on the festival circuit.”
Atkinson and the executive came to an understanding, with the executive agreeing to relinquish some of the creative control, according to Atkinson.
But when Atkinson went back to Netflix’s lawyer to hammer out the financial side of the new agreement, the lawyer had no idea of the new conversation.
“He said, ‘We would never give up that control — I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Basically that the deal was still the original deal,” Atkinson said. “He thought that I was coming back to Netflix begging to make a deal.”
When Atkinson tried to get back in touch with the Netflix executive, he said, his texts and calls were never returned. He hasn’t heard from the executive since.
“As a first-time filmmaker I was like, ‘Is this how it goes down?'” Atkinson said. “Netflix can say they respect the artist all they want, but you can tell where their loyalties are, and it’s not with the artists.”
Atkinson moved forward with his own theatrical release. He said the $20,000 cash prize that Netflix sponsored at Tribeca helped greatly. And he signed a streaming deal with Amazon (for about a third of the amount he would have gotten from the Netflix deal). “Do Not Resist” will be available on Amazon on Wednesday.
‘We dodged a bullet not taking the deal’
Atkinson said he wanted to go public with his experience because he wanted filmmakers and fans of Netflix to understand that for as much good as Netflix was providing mass audiences with exceptional content, he believed himself to be living proof of some cracks in its process.
“This will be a concern for filmmakers because Netflix are the titans,” a major figure in the documentary industry who asked to remain anonymous told Business Insider after hearing of Atkinson’s experience. “If the documentary community is to remain vital, it needs a multiplicity of voices and points of view, and by narrowing the pipeline Netflix is privileging a very few voices.”
Prominent documentary filmmaker Robert Greene (“Kate Plays Christine”), however, isn’t surprised at all by Atkinson’s story.
“Netflix helped the video store to go out of business, and they have now replaced it with a fairly absurd business model that seems to only value certain kinds of things, and it’s just depressing,” Greene told Business Insider. “It has always been difficult to get films with a voice seen, and it used to be that Netflix represented something better. Another choice. Another possibility. But that seems to be going away, and I would just tell young filmmakers don’t make decisions based on what’s going to get on Netflix, because art survives and eventually Netflix is going to get boring.”
Atkinson said that looking back, he had no regrets about turning down the more lucrative Netflix offer.
The film has played around the US, often in theaters filled with active police officers, who take part in Q&A sessions and interact with their communities, an experience that would have been lost if the film played only on Netflix.
“It’s fantastic business by Netflix,” Atkinson said. “Tell a filmmaker it’s the most timely film you’ve ever seen, make an offer, and if you can’t get it, do what you can so the film’s not seen by anyone.”
Atkinson pauses for a moment to compose himself.
“We dodged a bullet not taking the deal,” he said. “They would have destroyed three years of work.”
Screen Daily is reporting that Kaleidoscope Film Distribution (KFD) has acquired Denis Bartok’s new Irish horror film Nailsfor worldwide sales and UK distribution.
Nailsfollows the story of Dana Milgrom, a track coach who, having survived a near-death car accident, finds herself completely paralyzed and trapped inside her own body. While recovering, she becomes convinced that an evil presence, the titular Nails, exists inside her hospital room and is intent on killing her. Believing her to be experiencing a mental breakdown, Dana’s family brush away her concerns. Becoming increasingly terrified, Dana soon realizes that she may not be the only target. Unable to leave her bed, she risks losing the ones she cares for most.
Descent star Shauna Macdonald plays Dana, alongside British comedian Ross Noble (Stitches), Steve Wall (of Irish band The Stunning), Leah McNamara, and Richard Foster-King as Nails.
Bartok (producer of anthology horror Trapped Ashes) directs from his own script, which was co-written with Tom Abrams. Cinematography is by James Mather (Frank), with music by longtime Gary Numan collaborator Ade Fenton. The film has the support of the Irish Film Board, with Brendan McCarthy and John McDonnell producing for Dublin based Fantastic Films along with Jan Doense and Herman Slagter of The Netherlands-based, genre-specific Netherhorror.
Per Fantastic Films Nailsis described as being:
In the vein of recent films like The Babadook, Nailsis part of a new wave of horror that puts female characters and their emotional lives at the center of the storyline.
KFD will release Nailsin the UK in early summer 2016 (with a similar Irish release), and will shop to potential global buyers at the European Film Market in Berlin in February.
Michael Chapman, acquisitions & development executive at KFD commented:
We’re thrilled to be working with Fantastic Films again, a company which continues to produce unique genre projects. We look forward to sharing Nails with the international market.
Ukrainian Sheriffs, a documentary from real-life partners, Director/Writer Roman Bondarchuk and Producer/Writer Dar’ya Averchenko, tells the story of two men who received mayoral appointments to act as “sheriffs” in Southern Ukraine. The two men are a retired police officer with the look and demeanor of American television and film actor enforcer, Chuck Norris, and a Tony Soprano look-alike with a strong powerful presence who handles the heavier work including mechanical, electrical, and even plumbing!
Ukrainian Sheriffs is set in a remote village, Stara Zburjivka, near the Crimea in Southern Ukraine. It was shot over a period of three years culminating in a hundred and fifty hours of footage. The real story, however, begins to unfold in 2016. Russia has invaded the Crimea. Russian pro-separatists are taking up arms. Infiltrators orchestrate a political coup in the name of reform and progress at a town hall meeting. The locals, however, won’t hear their bombastic appeals and walk out after the level-headed mayor affirms their commitment to each other and their belief in each other. Shortly thereafter, the mayor makes a bold move and hires two men to help keep the peace and restore some semblance of normal and civil human behavior. He does the hiring by cajoling the men to be MacGyvers taking on various responsibilities that normally fall under the auspices of maintenance and public works.
Ukrainian Sheriffs starts out in what might seem like a comical fashion as the film’s two protagonists are fixing up a rather dilapidated looking, small yellow sedan with an upright, tiny Ukrainian flag perched over the driver’s side window. As luck would have it, the flag has soon flown away and the journey of the two Ukrainian Sheriffs has begun as they traverse unpaved, dirt roads making the rounds in the countryside.
One of the first stops is at a rural shack that the sheriffs refer to a villa, possibly because there are two similar structures built next to one another. Neither structure is much bigger than a large tool shed. The sheriffs make a few remarks over why they are there before proceeding to knock on the door. The door rattles and a scraggly looking couple emerges onto the front step. The Chuck Norris sheriff begins asking if the man had been beating his wife. The man responded he had but that he had good reason, though he couldn’t remember why, and that he and his woman had resolved it. The sheriffs asked the woman if she brought it on herself and she said she had. The man reached over and affectionately touched the woman. The sheriff then reprimanded the man for getting drunk and not showing up for work. He instructed the man to call his employer and let him know that he would be drinking and partying too hard to make it in to work the next day. This was good comic relief to some extent.
Unfortunately, the man winds up in prison by the film’s end sending his tearful little woman love letters. She pondered and mused over love and their existence together in a very heartfelt, life-affirming manner. Unbeknownst, the man had been coerced a few years earlier into signing a complaint levied against him in order to make a law enforcement quota mandated from a remote office miles and miles away. The man was sent to prison for stealing a bicycle due to his prior “conviction.”
In addition to this story thread, several more scenarios play our revealing a very human culture where the citizens are struggling to survive on a day-to-day basis in a setting close to a war zone with peripheral fallouts taking place right in their midst. Through these vignettes an indomitable spirit is revealed as the citizenry comes together despite their difference and find a way to not only survive but to progress as a community, thanks largely to efforts and foresight of the mayor.
Ukrainian Sheriffs is the Official Submission of Ukraine to the Academy of Motion Arts and Science for Best Foreign Language Film. Definitely worthy of consideration. In addition, this slice-of-life documentary reveals the spirit of what I believe the French historian, diplomat and political scientist, Alexis de Tocqueville uncovered in his travels in early 19th Century America penned in two volumes (1935 and 1940) titled “Democracy in America.”
After seeing the film, participating in the Q & A ,and attending the dinner reception that followed the screening, I agree with Director Bondarchuk’s understated statement about the film, “I made a very honest film. I would call it a tragic documentary comedy.” Yes, it is all that. And, it’s more than that. To me, it’s a film treatise wrapped up in a cozy documentary blanket. Nevertheless, Bondarchuk and Averchenko capture revealing prominent sociological and political tenets of a region under immense pressure amid heightened tensions. And they do it remarkably well with an often, and much needed, touch of comic relief. Highly recommended film.
Alibaba Pictures has made an investment in Showtime Analytics, an Irish movie data startup, through Yueke (a.k.a. Finixx) – its cinema ticketing system subsidiary. The company stated that Showtime and Finixx will collaborate to develop products specific to the Chinese cinema industry, according to e27.
Showtime Analytics was founded in 2014, and it provides data analytics products and services to cinema owners and film distributors. This allows them to collate, analyze and visualize their operational data in real time to deliver insights that drive improved business performance. Currently, the Irish company employs 30 full-time staff, notes e27.
Showtime CEO Richie Power said, “We want to help cinema owners and film distributors to unlock the potential of their data and help them understand more about the types of films being made, how they’re being made and marketed, and how audiences are responding to them.”
Yueke is a leading cinema ticket software system service in China. It serves more than 2000 theaters and several online movie-ticketing platforms such as Maoyan, Mtime, Alipay, Gewara, WeChat Movie Ticket and QQ Movie Ticket through its Finixx system. In 2015, Alibaba Pictures fully acquired the company for RMB830 million (around $120 million).
Yueke General Manager Li Xiangxiong said that the merger of Showtime’s capabilities with Finixx and the advantages that Big Data from the Alibaba ecology offers will help Yueke expand its portfolio of data products and services.
Alibaba Pictures, currently valued at $9.6 billion, has been aggressively investing in building out assets across the film and television production, distribution, and ticketing line. In July, the company launched an investment fund of $300 million with a focus on film and television production.
Recently, Alibaba’s film and entertainment arm acquired a stake in Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners. In the past, Alibaba’s film and entertainment arm has made investments in major Hollywood blockbusters like Star Trek Beyond and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.
This is its second investment outside China and the first by its subsidiary Yueke/Finixx. It is expected that by the year’s end, China will overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest movie market.
Last week’s phone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen had all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. The world is on edge with the election of an untested U.S. president determined to confront China. Upstart Taiwan creates the flashpoint: The leader calls the U.S. president — even before he takes office — and initiates a secret dialogue. Military forces are on alert. Markets waver. There are appeals for calm. But it’s too late. The fuse is lit. Watch the movie to see how it ends.
Probably the most appropriate working title for a Hollywood treatment of what took place between Tsai and Trump is “Much Ado About Nothing.” There are many ways in which America’s China policy with respect to Taiwan has become a jumble of inconsistencies and dangerous unrealism, starting with the implication in our policy that Taiwan exists only insofar as China permits us to recognize its existence. While the call between the two leaders was unorthodox, the reaction to it is more a reflection of a stultified underlying policy than an upset to the world order.
A bigger problem with the supposition that this episode might one day make for good Hollywood treatment is that before long, there might be no one to make such a film that is not somehow tied to the growing Chinese involvement in the U.S. film industry. From production to distribution, Chinese companies are increasing their stakes in one of the crown jewels of U.S. industry.
Much has been written about China’s Dalian Wanda Group, which took a majority stake in the U.S. theater chain AMC in 2012. Earlier this year, Dalian Wanda made an offer for the smaller Carmike theater chain. Together, the two chains own more than 8,000 screens, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. total.
On the production end of the process, Alibaba Pictures in October announced a co-production, co-finance partnership with Amblin Entertainment, Steven Spielberg’s production company. This in the wake of January’s announcement that Dalian Wanda bought the finance and production company Legendary Entertainment. The purchase of a major Hollywood studio by Dalian Wanda, Alibaba, or some other China interest seems a matter of time.
So what? Foreign investment in Hollywood is not unheard of; indeed, Japan’s Softbank had an estimated 10 percent stake in Legendary and was one of the investors bought out by the Dalian Wanda purchase. The stalwarts at the Wall Street Journal editorial page rightly noted in an October editorial that “the movie business is a competitive market with none of the immediate security risks of defense contractors or power-plant operators.”
To that end, the expressed intent of the Alibaba and Dalian Wanda deals mentioned is to create a global production and distribution network for what is clearly a global industry. While more movies are made in India than anywhere else and China is second only to the U.S. in total box office (but is the fastest growing country in that category), the U.S. remains a global leader in content and bankability. One measure: Global box office for 2016 is expected to be about $38 billion, but the combined gross of the Harry Potter, Avengers, and Batman franchises alone is about 15 percent of that. By the way, Legendary Entertainment, now owned by Dalian Wanda, produced the Batman series.
It is understandable that U.S. filmmaking interests are looking for every advantage they can get to distribute films in China, which accounts for more than 10 percent of global box office. China’s movie-going public is anchored by a growing urban middle class that has disposable income and is enamored with all things Western, from automobiles to iPhones. Co-finance, co-production deals to make movies makes perfect sense.
It also makes perfect sense that U.S. filmmakers will do all they can to avoid running afoul of a Chinese government that is increasingly obvious about two things that intersect in ways that put a bull’s-eye on the moviemaking process: control over the media and the use of “soft power” to enhance its role in the world.
On the first point: The Communist government under Xi Jinping is cracking down on so-called civil-society activities. The regime’s attempts to stifle dissent are becoming clear to the public. These include placing restrictions and conditions on Internet access by ordinary citizens, arrests of dissident bloggers, and even abducting several booksellers from Hong Kong and spiriting them back to the mainland for harassment and intimidation.
This control extends to moviemaking. Last month, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress approved a new film-industry-promotion law, ostensibly to modernize the domestic industry. The Chinese film industry is already heavily protected. According to China Law Blog, the draft law does not change existing prohibitions on “foreigners engaging independently in film production in China.” Foreigners still cannot distribute films in China, and quotas on foreign-film imports continue.
By entering into co-production and co-finance agreements with Chinese interests, U.S. filmmakers obviously hope to get over, around, or through these restrictions and gain access to a fast-growing urban market. To do so, though, Spielberg and other auteurs will probably have to accept the overall intent of the new domestic law, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, is “to serve ‘the people and socialism, prioritize social benefit, and coordinate social and economic effects.’”
Here’s another way to think about that: self-censorship. For example, Alibaba’s partner Amblin, or Dalian Wanda’s subsidiary Legendary, are not likely to want to make two versions of their movies — one for the U.S. and one for China — and so will likely take care to exclude from them anything that Beijing might see as not “prioritizing social benefit” for Chinese viewers.
What might that look like? No need to guess, because it’s already happening. In pre-release publicity for the Marvel blockbuster Doctor Strange, screenwriter C. Robert Cargill acknowledged, as reported in the New York Times, why a key character drawn from the original comic is Tibetan but in the film is played by a British actress, Tilda Swinton. “If you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he’s Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people,” Cargill said in an interview. Just in case you wouldn’t get his point, he also expressed concerns about “the risk of the Chinese government going, ‘Hey, you know one of the biggest film-watching countries in the world? We’re not going to show your movie because you decided to get political.’”
Got it. And this was a film made by Marvel Studios, and distributed by Marvel’s owner, Walt Disney Studios, a U.S. public company. How might self-censorship look when Dalian Wanda is financing the film and opening distribution doors across the country and attempting not to run afoul of the same government that kidnaps obscure booksellers in Hong Kong?
It’s one thing for Amblin or Legendary to engage in self-censorship to get movies that have been paid for by Chinese companies distributed in China. But the Marvel example is something we had better get used to: Movies produced and paid for by U.S. companies and distributed in the U.S. are censored in the hope that the same movie might somehow find its way into Chinese distribution.
While U.S. national security doesn’t depend on whether a a role in a movie based on a comic book is played by a British or a Tibetan actor, it is pretty obvious that the same kind of self-censorship will apply to political thrillers, historical fiction, real-world history, documentaries, and anything else that producers hope will be distributed in China. At the very least, the burden of proof is on filmmakers to demonstrate otherwise.
This plays into the attention that the Communist government under the Xi regime pays to so-called soft power. The world is fixated on the rise of the Chinese navy, its adventurism in the South China and Philippine Seas, and other “hard power” demonstrations that are raising concerns in the region and in the United States. But Xi intends to extend China’s influence in less belligerent ways, too. These include a proliferating number of international forums such as the Boao Conference, the hosting of global events such as the Olympics and Special Olympics, and investments in CCTV and other foreign-language television.
Core to the soft-power thesis are public diplomacy and related activities. The U.S. understood this for years going back to World War II, when it produced pro-military, pro-government films and, after the war, established Voice of America. The Chinese may simply believe they are modernizing that approach by controlling film content. Shaping the image of China and its interests through the global film industry could hardly be considered an incidental objective for Beijing when we consider the draft film-industry-promotion law or the efforts by Alibaba, Dalian Wanda, and others seeking a stronger foothold in the U.S. film industry.
To address this, the U.S. should consider some modernizing approaches of its own. That may already be underway. In September a bipartisan group of 16 members of the House of Representatives wrote to the comptroller general of the United States to ask for a review of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, “to determine whether its . . . authorities have effectively kept pace” with the current security landscape.
CFIUS is an interagency group that, under the auspices of the Treasury Department, determines whether potential foreign investments in U.S. entities could undermine national security. CFIUS has heretofore focused on national security and proposed investments in critical infrastructure. The September congressional letter asks the comptroller general this pointed question: “Should the definition of national security be broadened to address concerns about propaganda and control of the media and ‘soft power’ institutions?”
It’s the right question, and a review of the future of CFIUS is the right lever to pull. The Trump administration seems predisposed to ask such questions. President-elect Trump and many of his advisers seem to have no qualms about acknowledging the obvious: The Chinese government intervenes in markets of all types to exert its will. That Beijing would attempt to influence the global filmmaking industry to achieve its own ends doesn’t sound like something that would meet a lot of doubt or skepticism from the new administration, some of whose appointees will constitute the CFIUS.
“This has never happened. . . . There’s no road map for this,” Legendary Productions founder and CEO Thomas Tull said at the time of the Dalian Wanda takeover of the company. Now, while it’s still possible (maybe) to watch a movie in a theater in Kansas and not have to question whether a bureaucrat in Beijing approved it, is a good time to start making that map. — Therese Shaheen is a businesswoman and CEO of US Asia International. She was the chairman of the State Department’s American Institute in Taiwan from 2002 to 2004.
On a sweltering day this summer, a handful of protesters gathered outside an AMC movie theater in Times Square, holding red signs proclaiming “AMC = American Movie Communists.”
They were opposing the giant movie theater company AMC’s $1.2 billion purchase of a rival cinema chain, Carmike, that has theaters in 41 states. The deal, which is still subject to government approval, would make AMC the largest theater chain in the U.S. The protesters targeted AMC’s Chinese owners — the sprawling Chinese real estate and entertainment company called Dalian Wanda that acquired the American movie chain in 2002, creating the world’s largest theater empire.
The protest suggestedthe Carmike acquisition would further extend Beijing’s hidden control over American mass media. But the protesters had not gathered on their own volition. They were being paid to be there by a Washington lobbying firm, Berman and Company, waging a war against Chinese acquisitions of American movie theaters.
It was one of the many unexpected ways a quiet battle is underway to halt a trend of Chinese businesses gobbling up American companies. The battle’s reach now goes beyond traditional areas with obvious national security implications — such as President Obama’s decision late Friday to block the acquisition of a semiconductor company with sensitive technology — into more surprising areas like movie theaters, where concerns about financial ownership collide with issues of cultural openness.
Berman and Company, which uses a network of organizations to carry out campaigns on behalf of anonymous clients, is led by Rick Berman, a veteran lobbyist whom “60 Minutes” once called “Dr. Evil” for his defense of issues like secondhand smoke, trans fats, tanning beds and payday loans. For decades, his firm has launched ad campaigns to attack targets like the Humane Society, labor unions and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
The new campaign, called “China Owns Us,” is nominally run by the Center for American Security, a registered trade name for a 501(c)4 nonprofit called the Enterprise Action Committee, according to D.C. corporate records. A small group of people employed by Berman’s K Street lobbying office run these and dozens of other similarly structured organizations, Berman said in an interview.
To drum up opposition to Chinese acquisitions in Hollywood, Berman’s operatives purchased two billboards this summer calling AMC “China’s Red Puppet” — one on Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard, another outside AMC’s Kansas headquarters. Berman and his groups wrote opinion pieces, produced YouTube videos, appealed to think tanks and hired a lobbyist to reach out to Congress, Berman said, to warn people of China’s insidious influence. Berman says he fears that Dalian Wanda could use its theater screens to subtly influence people’s views about the U.S. and China. He compares political messages in movies to a can of Coca-Cola sitting on the table in a film, or James Bond driving an Aston Martin.
“What I’m trying to do is stop somebody else from managing the culture here,” Berman says.
AMC’s chief executive, Adam Aron, said those concerns were unwarranted. “AMC is completely run by its American management in Leawood, Kansas, as American as an American place in the heartland you can find,” he said. “We’re in the business of selling movie tickets and popcorn, and we don’t involve ourselves in what goes on in China.”
Berman says he has helped foster concern on Capitol Hill about the issue. In September, 16 congressmen sent a letter asking the government to reexamine the role of a federal committee known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, in determining whether deals like Wanda’s takeover of AMC and Carmike undermine national security. Another congressman sent a letter urging the Justice Department to reconsider whether Chinese media influence should be regulated under the same rules as foreign lobbying. On Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) sent a letter to the treasury secretary and the U.S. trade representative urging the U.S. government to more closely examine Chinese acquisitions in the U.S., including by Dalian Wanda.
“I am concerned that these acquisitions reflect the strategic goals of China’s government and may not be receiving sufficient review,” Schumer wrote.
Officials on Capitol Hill acknowledge meeting with Berman or his associates, but say they have been motivated by preexisting concerns about Chinese national security threats.
“It would be incomprehensible to me to turn a blind eye and think all is well with China,” said Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-N.C.), the lead signature on the CFIUS letter.
It is unclear who is funding Berman’s campaign. Berman says he launched it himself out of personal interest, and only later received a “modest contribution” from two donors, whose names he won’t reveal but whom he describes as wealthy people who “care about national security issues.”
“What matters is whether or not what I’m saying is right. And if it’s right, it’s doesn’t matter that somebody gave me the money to go out and say it,” he said.
But several industry experts point to Berman’s past ties with Philip Anschutz, a conservative billionaire who has a controlling stake in Regal Entertainment Group, which owns America’s largest cinema chain — at least until the AMC-Carmike deal goes through.
“The odds are that it’s the film-making community. They certainly have a dog in this fight,” John Carroll, a communications professor at Boston University who has blogged about Berman’s advertising tactics, says of Anschutz and Regal Entertainment. “But Berman resolutely refuses to reveal his donors.”
Tax records indicate that the Anschutz Foundation has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Berman’s nonprofits. Anschutz also owns the Weekly Standard and the Washington Examiner, where Berman has advertised and written about his China campaign.
“The relationship I have had with Phil has generally been over employment/union issues. It does not extend into this area,” Berman said in an emailed response.
The Anschutz Foundation and Regal Entertainment did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Shareholders have already approved the AMC-Carmike deal, and it is expected to close in late 2016 or early 2017 unless U.S. regulators intervene. In addition to an anti-trust review by the Department of Justice, CFIUS could rule that the deal threatens U.S. national security. Chinese investment in the U.S. entertainment industry skyrocketed to $3.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2016, up from $1.1 billion in 2015 and $2.7 billion in 2014, which was largely due to Wanda’s purchase of AMC, according to research and advisory firm Rhodium Group.
Dalian Wanda is the most prominent among the Chinese companies that have been on a buying spree in Hollywood in the past few years. Wanda purchased Legendary Entertainment, one of Hollywood’s biggest movie production companies, for $3.5 billion in early 2016. The company has a pending deal to buy Dick Clark Productions, the TV producer for the Miss America pageant and the Golden Globe Awards. AMC inked a deal in July to acquire the Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group, the largest cinema chain in Europe. Executives at AMC and Dalian Wanda say Chinese political interests do not influence what’s shown in American movie theaters.
“There is no political point of view,” Wang Jianlin, the head of Dalian Wanda who is also China’s richest man, told a crowd in Los Angeles in October. “I am a businessman.”
Others in the film industry, like Hollywood producer Janet Yang, attribute the backlash to Chinese media control to xenophobia and discomfort with China’s rising global power.
“If you grew up on John Wayne or Clint Eastwood or superhero movies, or these very powerful iconic pieces of content, that does affect what you think the world order looks like,” she said. “That’s a paradigm shift, some people can’t handle it.”
But some film industry executives and academics say the acquisitions warrant more scrutiny, partly due to Wang’s extensive ties with China’s military and top leaders. China tightly controls its own domestic media to ensure that the press, film and other media portray the Communist Party in a positive light, and it allows only 34 foreign films to show in its cinemas each year. Domestic and Hollywood films that are critical of Beijing or highlight sensitive topics like Tibet or Taiwan, for instance, have little chance of reaching China’s lucrative cinema market, which by some estimates overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest this year.
Aynne Kokas, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia and the author of “Hollywood Made in China,” says Americans should consider the possibility that Wanda could one day use its massive distribution network to suppress a film that was critical of China.
“Would that happen? We can’t be certain. But the fact is that the possibility is significant, and given the nature of film distribution in China, it’s not actually that far off,” she said.
Some say China’s influence has already reshaped production in Hollywood. To cater to China’s lucrative audiences, some Hollywood filmmakers have added Chinese stars to the cast, as in “Iron Man 3,” or relocated scenes to China, as in “Looper.” Concerns about Chinese censors led filmmakers to remove China as the origin of a zombie virus in “World War Z,” and swap North Korea for China as the main antagonist in “Red Dawn.” It even led to the removal of a scene in “Skyfall” in which James Bond kills a Chinese security guard, a report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says.
Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China at the Wilson Center, says there is no evidence as yet that Wanda is changing what Americans see. The push in Congress to regulate media investments is “a very dangerous notion,” he said. “It would be a gross infringement on our cultural freedom if we couldn’t see good Chinese films, because Congress had determined that a Chinese film threatened our cultural security.”
On the other hand, Daly says, the U.S. has never confronted a potential security threat quite like this before. “With China, you’ve got authoritarianism and purchasing power in one nation.”
“The Great Wall” presents a whole series of firsts. It is the first movie made in English by Zhang Yimou, China’s master of the big spectacle. Costing some $150 million it is possibly the biggest-budget Chinese film of all time. It is certainly the biggest Hollywood-Chinese co-production to date and is Matt Damon’s first Asian movie.
Additionally, it is the first picture to emerge from Legendary East, the Chinese wing of Thomas Tull’s – now Wanda-owned — Legendary Entertainment production powerhouse.
All that is another way of saying there is a lot at stake. And it is why the movie’s upcoming release in China is being delivered to market with an unprecedented marketing and promotional campaign.
“It is a new kind of film,” says producer Peter Loehr, and CEO of Legendary East. The action-fantasy-adventure movie has major elements of Western blockbuster cinema, yet is 20% in Chinese and is directed by Zhang, whose film credits include epic “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.” His track record mounting massive live events includes the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games, and the recent G20 Summit Conference in Hangzhou.
“This film is absolutely what I’ve spent 25 years of my career building up to,” says Beijing-based Loehr, who was previously a Chinese indie producer and later the China head of talent agency CAA.
Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, believes that the film can change the course of Chinese movies in international markets as well. “At Universal we are huge believers in a bright future for Chinese Cinema, fueled by the impressive recent growth of the Chinese theatrical marketplace. Our participation in ‘The Great Wall’ is very exciting to us. The combination of a tentpole scale Chinese-themed picture, the vision of the renowned filmmaker Zhang Yimou, the star power of Matt Damon and the enormous cast of talented Chinese actors make it the ideal vehicle to introduce Chinese creative product to the global audience,” Shell told Variety by email.
The film originated with a high concept idea – that the Great Wall of China only needed to be that size if it was built to keep out something far nastier than mere humans – from Legendary founder, Tull.
“It is not that I actually saw it from a plane. Rather when I was a little boy I heard that the only man-made object you could see from space was The Great Wall of China. Whether it is true or not, I could not conceive of the feat of engineering and ingenuity needed to build it. And I’ve been fascinated with it my whole life,” Tull says.
The film was shot in mid-2015 and Zhang has spent more than a year in post-production. The China release date of Dec. 16 puts it squarely at the height of peak season cinemagoing in the Middle Kingdom. It releases in North America on Feb. 17 next year with outings in international territories between those dates.
The lengthy post-production period gave plenty of time to cut visual material for promotion. Online marketing is much more important to film releases in China than in Western markets where posters and TV ads may dominate. Producers delivered more than 60 pieces of bespoke video for online consumption, in addition to a conventional trailer, a teaser trailer and three music videos. The trailers have played ahead of nearly every significant local and Hollywood film in Chinese theaters since Oct. 1.
Marketing in China shifted up a further gear with a major event called the “Five Armies Press Conference” on Nov. 15. “The film’s marketing is stretched over a series of events, introducing the film’s worlds in pieces, so that people get to know the concept progressively,” says Loehr. The Five Armies event introduced the battle groups, their leaders and the actors who play them as well as the unique weapons required to fight the film’s monsters.
That has been followed by the release of the first and second singles from the soundtrack. This week (Dec. 6) sees a large glitzy press conference in Beijing with the full cast in attendance, followed by a one day junket for domestic Chinese press, and then another for South East Asian press who are being flown in.
Along the way there will be further reveals about the creatures, their interaction with the human characters and the release of the final song. On Friday, the promotional action shifts to Shanghai for an event with more focus on the movie’s animation and proceeds going to the Great Wall Preservation Fund.
Screenings for Chinese press, friends-and-family and opinion leaders begin from Dec. 12. Public screenings begin from 7pm on Dec. 15, the evening before the official release date. Presentations will use an almost unprecedented combination of formats including 2D, 3D, IMAX 2D and 3D, China Giant Screen, and 4DX, the Korean technology that sees supplementary content and screen extensions projected on a cinema’s side walls for a 270-degree effect.
The film was conceived and green-lighted even before Wanda acquired Legendary in the deal that was announced in January this year. Its four financiers and presenters are Legendary, Universal Pictures, China Film Group and Le Vision Pictures.
The range of resources that Wanda can bring to bear – China’s largest cinema chain, distribution, and two marketing companies — elevate the film’s launch into a national event. China Film and Wanda’s Wuzhou Distribution firm are the distributors of record, while Legendary and Le Vision (part of the Le Eco group) oversee marketing and promotion.
“Where we might have had 8 people in a marketing meeting for ‘Pacific Rim’ or ‘Godzilla’ that expanded to 20 people on ‘Warcraft,’ including people from Wanda, Wanda Cinema Line and (social media giant) Tencent,” says Loehr. “Warcraft had a stellar opening and achieved a lifetime gross of $220 million, making it the third biggest film this year in China, a figure that dwarfed the $47.2 million it achieved in North America.
“For ‘The Great Wall’ we’ve held marketing and strategy meetings every Saturday with up to 60 people in the room from Legendary, Le Vision, CFG, Wanda Cinema, Tencent, China Movie Marketing Group, Mtime, Wanda Malls and Wanda’s real estate development team,” says Loehr. Some 260 of Wanda’s malls are putting on “Wall” events. Mtime, the movie ticketing and marketing firm Wanda acquired this year, is putting on “Dare to Dream” and Zhang Yimou exhibitions in a further 56 malls and CMMG will promote an augmented reality video game.
“If you are doing things that are formulaic, or that audiences feel they’ve seen before, it is going to be a hard sell,” says Tull. “The canvas and some of what Zhang accomplished is jaw-dropping.”