October 13, 2004

Rumored Paramount Indie Division going Head-on With Fox Searchlight?

I would hate to be Ruth Vitale or David Dinerstein these days with all of the talk about an emerging, bulked-up "Indie Paramount Division." At any rate, The Los Angeles Times has an informative article that delves headlong into conjectureville, and along the way, drops us with some interesting marketing points. Specifically, it lets us know why the forlorn Paramount Classics label has floundered:

Paramount Classics has been stymied by an outmoded, low-risk, art-house business model. Set up by Dolgen in 1998 after he came to Paramount from Sony, the company was inspired by Sony Classics, which has consistently turned a profit by buying classy but low-risk foreign films and documentaries. However, Dolgen emphasized the no-risk part of the equation so much that Paramount Classics never had enough money to bid on top films or market them successfully. While other companies made their own movies, Paramount was limited until recently to acquisitions, preventing it from scooping up a sought-after script or building a relationship with a gifted young filmmaker.

We also get an explaination why Fox Searchlight is Miramax's heir apparent from Tom Freston, co-president of Viacom:

"Once you get past the tent-pole movies like "Spider-Man' or 'Shrek,' the indie film companies are the most financially viable part of the business today," he explained. "A specialty company is a place where you can make a profit on pictures at a relatively low risk, market movies more cheaply and build talent relationships that provide access to great material and bring new creative energy to the parent studio."

Later in the article, Freston goes on to draw parallels between the current crop of indie filmmakers and the Garage Bands of the past. But how "garage" are the major studios willing to get?

I'm not so sure. But I do know this: we're probably going to see the film business version of Sub-Pop in the very near future. The only question is wether or not it will be a studio's satellite...

Related Link:
A new indie film division could pump up Paramount