2001 AMERICAN FILM MARKET
by William C. Martell
The American Film Market celebrated its
twenty first birthday last year... but there didn't seem to be
much celebration in the halls at the Leows Santa Monica Hotel.
Though the trades announced that attendance was up from year
before last, the building seemed empty. Usually the first weekend
of the market is so packed with people you can't move. Last year
the only problems navigating the stairways was with pairs of
French buyers who refuse to walk single-file. Where have all the
buyers gone?
WHAT IS AFM?
MAJOR STUDIOS like Warner Brothers,
Paramount, and Universal, have long standing deals in place with
foreign distributors. But Independent Producers, without the
consistent output of a big studio, make their foreign
distribution deals on a film by film basis. Selling each film to
each individual country. Every year producers would fly to
Cannes to sell their product. Twenty one years ago, a group of
American Indie Producers decided to start their own market. Why
fly to France when the French can fly here?
Every year since then, Indie Producers from all over the world
set up shop at the Leows Hotel in Santa Monica for a week in
February to sell their films. Beds are removed and replaced with
office furnishings, turning the luxury hotel into the world's
most exclusive office building. Security guards are posted at
the elevators and stairwells, to keep the uninvited off the sales
floors. Only those with badges are allowed. American producers
selling films to foreign countries, or foreign producers selling
films to America.
These films range from Oscar winners and nominees like TRAFFIC
to sub-B movies like PREDATORS FROM BEYOND NEPTUNE to big budget
films like DRIVEN (starring Stallone, directed by Renny Harlin).
Action films for HBO, thrillers for USA Network, and sci-fi films
for the SciFi Channel. The type of genre films you find on the
middle shelf at your video store. Though you will still find
plenty of B Movies at AFM, now they're sharing space with films
starring Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis. If a studio didn't finance
it, it's for sale at AFM.
Film is a global business. The same Tom Cruise film that we
see in the United States will be exported to France and Italy and
Japan and Zimbabwe. Over sixty percent of the average film's
earnings come from outside the United States. In the past, this
has always been a bonus income for the studios... but rising
costs have made foreign box office increasingly important. With
the average film costing $78 million and many blockbusters
costing north of $100 million (MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 cost over
$200 million to make!), studios NEED films to be hits
overseas.
Strangely enough, it's now more important for a film to be
successful in Germany, Spain and Japan than in Ohio. Foreign
distribution of a film is big business - and foreign funding of
American films is more common now than ever before. THE WHOLE 9
YARDS and the new version of GET CARTER were funded by foreign
pre-sales made at American Film Market. Though both of those
films were distributed in the United States by Warner Bros. they
were MADE by an independent company called Franchise Films...
owned by a couple of scalawags I've sold scripts to in the past.
The new Jack Nicholson movie THE PLEDGE? Made by an independent
company with foreign money. That Kevin Costner movie 3000 MILES
TO GRACELAND? An AFM flick funded with foreign money - not funded
by a studio! Since foreign distribution accounts for over 60% of
a film's income, it's easier to find funding from foreign sources
than from US studios!
2001 TRENDS
Every year AFM seems to change. In 1996 art house Indie films
were hot - the AFM was the place to buy Sundance winners. In 1997
was the year when cable expansion made genre films for the Sci-Fi
Channel and USA Network hot. 1998 was a year of confusion -
nobody knew what was hot and everyone was scrambling. 1999 we
were back to genre films - but this time the family market was
hot. Two years ago AFM became the A picture market - Franchise
announced a slate of movies starring Bruce Willis and Stallone
and Nicholson and Travolta... But last year we've seen GET CARTER
and BATTLEFIELD EARTH and realized that big stars don't mean big
movies. There were less big budget films announced last year, and
a return to genre movies for cable (because DVD adds a new source
of income for films in this price range).
Studios release about 200-250 films a year... Last year at the
American Film Market there were 1,107 new films for sale. That's
four to five times as many movies as the studios make!
Though the catch-all genre of Drama had the most film entries
last year with 329, Action, Comedy, and Thrillers were still the
most prevalent AFM offerings.
Over seventeen percent of the new films last year were
Thrillers. 191 new entries, compared to 166 in 2000 and 140 the
year before. There is a growing market for this genre because
they play well on cable TV in every country. Thrillers aren't as
violent as action films so they don't come with TV censorship
problems. Thrillers also "travel well" - they rely on visual
story telling instead of dialogue (which must be dubbed or
subtitled). Movies like .COM FOR MURDER starring Natassja Kinski
and Nicolette Sheridan as sisters tracking down a killer who
finds his victims on the internet... and kills them live on his
website, and PROXIMITY starring Rob Lowe as a prisoner marked for
death who must escape to survive; were hot titles.
The second most popular genre was comedies, with just over 15%
of the market. There were 178 new comedies last year, including
THE ACCIDENTAL SPY starring Jackie Chan and PLAN B about a woman
who accidentally takes a job as an assassin. You may have noticed
that both of these could be described as ACTION-COMEDIES -
because dialogue heavy films don't "travel well" most of the
comedies for sale at AFM are physical comedies. BEAN was a huge
international hit a couple of years ago, because the lead
character is mostly silent - no dubbing required!
Fifteen percent of last year's new films were Action pictures
with 170 new titles this year, compared to 159 in 2000, and 165
the year before. Action used to be king of the hill, and it's
still a popular genre, but the focus on TV friendly titles has
pushed it to third place among the genres. Action titles ranged
from Tommy Lee Jones as a wilderness tracker trying to catch an
escaped killer in THE HUNTED to the latest Jean Claude Van Damme
and Don "The Dragon" Wilson movies.
The biggest growth in any genre last year was in Horror
movies. For years the horror genre has been dead - they didn't
even track it, it was thrown in with Sci-Fi. Last year horror
seemed to explode! In 2000 there were 35 films that were either
sci-fi or horror, last year there were 52 Horror movies (and an
additional 20 Sci-Fi flicks). Because SCREAM and SCARY MOVIE made
fun of the stalk-and-slash subgenre, most of the horror films at
AFM featured supernatural elements. There was an army of zombie
movies, from CHILDREN OF THE LIVING DEAD to DAY OF THE DEAD 2.
1950s style "giant bug" movies were also popular - with many
giant spider movies to choose from!
The biggest drop in any genre was in family films. In 2000
there were 45, last year only 24! That's almost a 50% drop in one
genre! Most family films at AFM feature amazing animals - this is
where AIR BUD came from. If you know where you can get a horse
that can juggle, and write a script about a juggling horse,
someone at AFM may be interested.
Also debuting at last year's AFM were 61 romances, 33
documentaries, 17 animated films (including adult animated
pictures from Japan), 3 musicals, and 12 erotic films. Thriller,
Action and Physical Comedy remain the staple genres of the
American Film Market. If you have a good script in one of these
popular genres, tailored to fit a budget, you might consider
exploring this market.
WIDENING BUDGET GAP
In my story on AFM in Script Magazine two years ago I
mentioned the widening gap between budgets at AFM. The big
budgets are getting bigger and the low budgets are getting
lower... leaving nothing in the middle! Last year's AFM films
were either big budget star-driven films created to compete on
the studio level like Leonardo Di Caprio in GANGS OF NEW YORK and
Stallone and Kevin Bacon in DOLAN'S CADILLAC or low budget genre
films like Richard Grieco in BODY PARTS with fewer films in the
middle than ever before. One reason is that cable in both the
United States and Europe has expanded too fast - there are too
many channels and not enough viewers. That 300 channel dish
system is great - but you still can only watch one channel at a
time. That means 299 channels are going unseen at any one time.
TV channels get their money from the number of viewers that tune
in... so more channels equals less money for everyone. You can
only cut the pie into so many slices!
With less money for each channel, that means the average
budget for a cable movie has gone down. That $3 million HBO World
Premiere from three or four years ago has to be made for $1
million today. But star's salaries have NOT gone down - so half
of that $1 million budget is going to the star! That means
limited locations and limited casts have become more critical in
scripts for this market. These films are still competing with big
budget studio films on cable, so you still need to come up with a
blockbuster concept... just one that can be made for pocket
change! Nobody said a screenwriter's job would be easy!
THE STARS
What would AFM be without the occasional star showing up to
promote their film? Last year, Jackie Chan was on hand to
promote his new film THE ACCIDENTAL SPY. I talked with Sean
Young, who was here to promote her new thriller DEATH GAME -
she's still a knock out. Chris Penn was promoting his new action
film REDEMPTION and trying to set up a cop drama in the vein of
his film MULHOLLAND FALLS.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was also at AFM. Last year the AFM
honored four people who have helped make the market a success.
Ah-nuld was honored as the World Box Office Champion for his past
AFM films like TERMINATOR, T-2, those CONAN THE BARBARIAN movies,
and his very first film... HERCULES GOES BANANAS. Renny Harlin
received the Visions In Directing honor for his work behind the
camera on AFM films including the upcoming DRIVEN and his horror
movie PRISON and martial arts action film BORN AMERICAN. The star
of AFM films like LOVE & A .45, A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES, and the
upcoming BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, Rene Zellweger, received the
Achievement In Acting award. The Lifetime Achievement Award went
to the King of AFM - a man who has been making independent genre
films since 1954 - the guy who gave James Cameron and John Sayles
and Jack Nicholson and hundreds of others their starts... Roger
Corman. The quartet was honored at an awards luncheon which will
become a yearly event at the film market.
SCANDAL
Every year at AFM there's at least one good scandal, and last
year was no exception. Remember all of those big budget films
that my buddies at Franchise Films produced? BATTLEFIELD EARTH
and GET CARTER and THE ART OF WAR? Well, they didn't only flop in
the USA, they flopped in Germany, too. Germany is the largest
foreign market for American films... and the German company who
released the films wasn't happy with them. So they decided to
sue. Because you can't sue just because a film sucks, they
accused Franchise of inflating their budgets and skimming money
off the top. Though Franchise says that none of this is true, the
lawsuit will require them to open their books... and who knows
what you'll find there? Skimming isn't unheard of in this
business - why do you think COMING TO AMERICA was still in the
red after breaking box office records? AFM companies are even
less regulated than the studios. This might mean there will be no
BATTLEFIELD EARTH 2 next year...
AFM 2002
This year AFM is the last week of February - will the market
be as slow as last year? Or will independent films be on the
rebound? After a really bad 2001 (impending SAG and WGA strikes,
economy problems, 9/11, and even more economy problems) my
prediction for AFM 2002 is less than rosy. My guess is that this
year will be even worse than last year, and we'll have to wait
until 2003 for a rebound. On the other hand, 2001 was a record
year for film and video and an upturn in the economy might lead
to a surge in independent film production later this year - in
time for the MIFED market in October. I'll be attending AFM at
the end of the month and give you the scoop in a brand new
article sometime next month.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR FILM at AFM next year:
Write a solid, budget friendly script in a popular genre.
About 8 locations, and ten speaking roles, an amazing high
concept that will make the film a "must see". Buy a copy of The
Hollywood Reporter's special edition for AFM (published in late
February), Cannes Festival (published mid-May), or MIFED Market
(published in early October). These editions list all of the
Indie distributors. Find companies who produce films in the same
genre as your script and send them a one page letter or fax
pitching your story. Though the market is weaker than it has
ever been, they are still making movies. It's just tougher to
sell your script to an AFM company that at any other time in the
history of the market. With more than a thousand Indie Films
produced every year, there are a thousand chances that one of
them will start with YOUR script.
FADE OUT
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