Boxoffice-June.1989

Independents
(amtmucdfmmp 18)
pose doubling your investment would be
considered a success. I'm talking about
everv'thing, not just theatrical. It's
pretty
hard to double your investment in
theatrical these days."
Gordon has had it with formulas. "We
foimd independent distribution because
that's the only way we could get our
pictures to the people. Now that seems
like it's not valid anymore, so we have to
find a new way to get our pictures to the
people and identify them."
For Gordon, that means phasing Alive
out of the distribution business. For
John Daly, getting Hemdale's pictures
to the people means, amazingly, getting
into independent distribution precisely
when so many others appear to be bailing
out of it, "Going into distribution is a
ver\' important step for the company,"
Daly says, "and we've got to get it right.
We'll see how we fare over the next two
or three years. We seem to have a wonderful
response from exhibitors. We'll
have four offices operating: Los Angeles,
New York, Dallas and Chicago.
We've set up our overseas distribution in
most foreign countries, so we truly can
say we're operating as a worldwide distributor."
Indeed, with trade barriers coming
dovm and satellite delivery systems going
up, many industry analysts think
"Eurodollars" could take the place of
junk bonds as the common coin of the
next investment bonanza. Already, Steloff
hazards, "I think 30 to 40 percent —
and growing — of our cash flow comes
from overseas. The public sources of
money in America are drying up. The
private investment's diying up. The cost
of media's getting wildly out of sight. It's
murdiferous. You've got to go back to
the hard-ass work of finding new ways
of pre-sell."
Wherever the money comes from,
Daly is convinced that a resurgent independent
distribution market is where it
will go. "There will be the film that has
all the right elements, and the only
thing missing will be distribution, and
hopefully Hemdale will be an answer.
We may not be the first answer they
want. They may go to other studios first,
but if they can't make the right arrangement
that is required by whoever their
financiers may be, Hemdale may be a
little more flexible.
"We seem to be getting offered more
projects now that people are starting to
realize we're in distribution. This business,
as I've now been in it about 20-odd
years, is a cyclical business that has its
peaks and dips, and I think the majors
are having their peak time. I think the
independents had it two years ago, and I
think it's going to take another couple of
years to see a couple of the independents
break through with terrific product.
When you think of the Oscars in
'86, something like 26 Oscars went to
independent pictures. This year, maybe
there was one or two."
Daly's math's a little off, but his feel
for how drastically things have changed
in just two or three years is right on the
money. Independents picked up six Oscars
in 1986, a record. More significantly,
the two they collected this March
went to Miramax for "Pelle the Conqueror"
and Goldwyn for "Hotel Terminus:
The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie" —
examples of those two traditional staples
of independent distribution, the
foreign film and the documentary.
Neither of them was a picnic to market,
but both should do respectable if not
bank-breaking business for their distributors.
The lesson in all this for independents
isn't all that mysterious. As The
New Yorker's Pauline Kael, dean of
American film critics, observed in an
address delivered on the day of this
year's Oscars, "If you always are tiying
to second-guess the public and give
them what you think they want, or what
the marketing people say they can sell,
you're going to produce mediocre work.
No good business is run except in tenns
of the real tastes, the secret tastes, of
the person in charge. That's how you
get a great magazine. That's how you
get a great movie studio."
^
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