BoxOffice® Pro - October 2012

BOOK
IT!
IMITATION IS THE
MOST LUCRATIVE
FORM OF FLATTERY
When Jaws hit it big, multiple
mockbusters came out to capitalize
on its success: Piranha,
Orca and Alligator. This month’s
Book It! looks at commodities
made hotter by their proximity
to greatness, including our
chart which ticks off five flicks
whose financial potential is
maximized by similar fan-favorite
TV shows and movies.
HOPE FOR INDIE FILM
HE’S BEEN TASKED TO SAVE INDIE
FILM. DOES THAT MEAN IT’S DYING?
by Sara Maria Vizcarrondo
■ When Ted Hope (below) was offered the job
as the executive director of the San Francisco
Film Society, he was given the mandate to “save
indie film.” Not only is that a perplexingly tall
order, it also raises the question: is indie film
dying?
“Wonderful movies come out of the indie
sector and do well in the business world. That
was the case two years ago,” says Hope, citing
Oscar winners The King’s Speech and Black Swan
as new examples of the successful indie. Earlier
films like Reservoir Dogs, Pi, Sex, Lies, and Videotape
all defined “indie” and provided breakout
success for makers who’d go on to become
major players. Those titles are remembered in
part because of their exciting legacy, and they
heralded later indie hits like Safe, The Brothers
McMullen and The Ice Storm, each of which
involved names and breakouts (Todd Haynes,
Edward Burns, Sigourney Weaver), became arthouse
standards in their release, and were also,
not coincidentally, produced by Ted Hope.
“We’re at a place right now where good
films don’t always get
seen,” says Hope. “It’s
a move to a culture
of superabundant
access while business
remains stuck.” He
attributes the stagnation
to scarcity and
control. Hope calculates
that nationally,
we’re only able
to successfully
consume
and market
500
to 600
indie
titles per year, while every year, some 50,000
indie films are produced.
“That means the top consumption market
in the world, America, handles one percent of
the world’s supply—or that it’s going to take
an entire century to consume what we produce
in one year.” Those are the kinds of numbers
you hear when people speak of crude oil or
corn farming, not cultural product. Yet Hope
believes he knows what can rescue filmmakers,
audiences and theaters owners: super niches.
As he explains, “We used to have to speak to
everyone. Now we speak to certain special
someones.”
San Francisco boasts the oldest film festival
in America and continues to be seen as a leader
in the field. Hope’s predecessor at the SFFS,
Graham Leggat, turned the society into a yearround
educational and cultural nucleus, creating
multiple small festivals and showcases as well as
educational programs and competitions. And the
area has also grown famous worldwide because
of its technological dominance. Notes Hope,
“We in indie film culture haven’t successfully
worked well with technology.” While digital
technologies are democratic and accessible, these
two groups have yet to fully merge in a way that
would innovate or boost indie markets.
Before his big move west to accept his new
mission, Hope founded the Cinema Research
Institute at NYU, a think tank that pooled
savvy cinema graduate students to devise strategies
to, indeed, Save Indie Film. “That sort of
big-idea thinking around media and finding
ways to help facilitate it on a cultural level, and
not just a privatized corporate level, is something
I’m really interested in doing. [I want to
find] the role that a film society can have to
help conservation and solutions to business and
creative issues so that we can hopefully incubate
a better mousetrap.”
Ultimately, Hope says, “I want to embrace
the largest, most comprehensive definition
of what cinema is. I see the future of film as
a means of creative expression and a mode of
doing business.”
THE DOLLS OF LISBON
SMOOTH CRIMINAL
The street artist Banksy argues that for art to
be public and provocative, it must skate close
to crime. His doc Exit Through the Gift Shop
won acclaim, attention and an Oscar nom by
similarly skating the lines of truth and fiction,
art and crime. This doc follows suit but trades
Banksy’s celeb status for a semi-obscure art
movement called the Antagonist Movement.
The founder makes wire frame dolls wrapped
in canvas and sends them to artists around
the world, satisfying both the underground
influence of these dolls and the general hunger
artists have for resources. This doc’s super-indie
soundtrack and rough composure are marks of
its authenticity, and it’s just the kind of movie
you pair with a party, concert or art show.
CONTACT Ethan Minsker, antagonistart@
aol.com DIRECTOR Ethan H. Minsker GENRE
Documentary RUNNING TIME 72 min.
LATE BLOOMERS
DIE HERBSTZEITLOSEN
ALWAYS BUY LINGERIE FROM AN
OLD LADY
The Swiss entered Late Bloomers as their bid for
the foreign-film Oscar, but it rarely played here
until Efi Lubliner, last month’s interviewee for
Book It!, resurrected it with his International
Film Showcase to capitalize on the recent pop
trend of foreign stories about middle-aged
kooks. Martha’s husband Hans brings her to an
idyllic town in Switzerland and insists she give
up her lingerie-making, a skill he makes her
hide from her church-dwelling neighbors. But
when Hans dies, his empty grocery shop needs
a new product—and no matter how loudly
conservative the townies claim to be, everyone
wants to feel sexy. If your town has a busy indie
undie dealer, you’ve got what it takes for a fun
crossover party.
CONTACT Efraim Lubliner, 925-283-1700,
efi@edcsystem.com CAST Stephanie
Glaser, Annemarie Düringer, Heidi Maria
Glössner DIRECTOR Bettina Oberli SCREEN-
48 BOXOFFICE PRO OCTOBER 2012