EVALUATION QUESTION 7

By Andrew Roth

INTRODUCTION

As already established in the film classification post, we have decided to work alongside 3 companies, OpenRoad Films, Darklight Films and Slik Studios in a co-production, with Open Road taking on a more dominant role because of their sufficient financial means and distributing experience.

Despite only being established in 2011, it certainly has plenty of experience behind it with the likes of Tom Ortenberg as CEO having previously been the executive of both Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company.

FILMS THEY HAVE DISTRIBUTED

Critically, these films have had mixed reviews, with ‘The Grey’ and ‘Side effects’ doing very well, whilst ‘Killer Elite’ and ‘Host’ have done comparatively poorly. However, from a business perspective, all of these films have been profitable ventures, particularly ‘End of Watch’, which grossed $50million at the box office despite having only a $7million budget.

WHERE THEY DISTRIBUTE

Since OpenRoad Films are owned by the two largest theatrical exhibitors in the USA, it isn’t surprising that the majority of the films they work with are distributed there.

However, films like ‘Silent Hill: 3D’ were distributed in Canada and France whilst ‘The Grey’ became a worldwide hit and so was distributed in numerous countries. ‘The Killer Elite’ was distributed in America, Australia, and the U.K, just like ‘The Host’.

WHAT TYPE OF CINEMA ARE THEIR FILMS SHOW IN Since OpenRoad is the subsidiary group of AMC Theatres

and Regal entertainment group, our film would likely be shown in one of the many hundreds of theatres that both these companies collectively own, with most of them being multiplex theatres.

AMC theatres in particular have recently undergone a massive deal with their parent company, Dalian Wanda to secure a cash injection of $500million in order to renovate all of their cinemas.

OUR EXPECTATIONS OF OPENROAD The main reason we wanted work with OpenRoad was

because they are a modern company looking to utilise the growth in the online market and this is evident with their recent agreement to sign up with Netflix.

We would also expect them to distribute our film in the best possible quality so for example, we would like the film to be shown on their 4K screens as well as producing it on Blu-Ray.

WHY THEY WOULD INVEST IN OUR FILM We believe that our film ‘Final Status’ would be a great investment

for Open Road because we suit the kind of genre that they would be interested in funding because we don’t think that our film covers typical themes and I think that we have come up with a fairly original concept in terms of creating a thriller based on the theme of cyber-bullying and social networking.

Also, we share a similar ethos when it comes to distribution because we believe that it is important to modernise as the online film market is beginning to expand, and one key reason why we wanted to work with Open Road was because of their agreement to distribute their films to Netflix, which is currently the largest streaming site in the world.

OUTLETS FOR DISTRIBUTION

ITunes

Netflix

PlayStation Store

Hulu

According to a recent study by IHS screen digest, 3.4 billion online movies were watched with Netflix and Hulu accounting for 94% of legal viewing, which is considerably more than the 2.6 billion movies watched on physical DVDs or Blu-Rays.

However, in terms of profits last year, physical copies of DVDs and Blu-Ray massively outsold the digital market because they still cost considerably more than a rental of $5. Because of this, the physical market made over $11Bn last year compared to online which took $1.7Bn.

The movie would also be distributed through numerous digital devices such as Android phones, Tablets and there is even a healthy profit being made in the In-flight entertainment industry.

This info graphic clearly shows the growth of the digital market in that the largest proportion of moviegoers in the past year are owners of tablets; the whole idea of the typical cinephile going to the cinema every week is now evolving and according to these statistics, the people who are viewing online content at home are contributing more to the industry.

Conclusion

In summary, we feel that with the aid of Open Road films our company will prosper because they are clearly engaged with the ever-evolving online industry which now makes up 50% of all movie sales.

I feel that our film in particular will benefit from a focus on the online distribution front because as established in the evaluation question 4, our target audience is likely to be between the 16-35 year old age bracket and as this graphic shows, these are the people that are utilising the internet the most when it comes to movies.