September 30, 2004

With Tom Freston rattling his New Paramount saber at Paramount Classics and Harvey Weinstein doing everything but serving boiling oil in Starbucks cups to get much of the current Miramax staff out the door without paying out their contracts before announcing The New Miramax and UA's Hotel Rwanda being pushed hard for Oscar while UA is about to be sucked into The New Sony Pictures and Warner Indie is still looking for its first hit and Focus is rouging it up with Chuck and zombies… it seems like every Dependent but Searchlight is under some serious scrutiny.

The immediate threat seems to be to Paramount Classics, a division that that has failed to hit it out of the park no matter what kind of quality they have brought to the cinema. The statistics are clear. The division has never lost money for the studio over any of their years in business. But the biggest grosser for the division was You Can Count On Me, a huge critical success with 2 Oscar and 5 Indie Spirit nominations and all… but still, only $9.2 million at the domestic box office.

Istvan Szabo's Sunshine managed $5.1 million… Sofia Coppola's debut, The Virgin Suicides, did $4.9 million and the great German dramatic comedy Mostly Martha grossed $4.2 million here in the U.S.

Only five other Paramount Classics releases grossed more than $1 million. Three were from Patrice Leconte (The Man on the Train - $2.5 million, Intimate Strangers - $1.9 million and The Girl on the Bridge - $1.7 million). One was an Ed Burns semi-miss, Sidewalks of New York, with $2.4 million and the Polish Bros' Northfork with $1.4 million.

The taste of the studio is pretty strong. Here are some of the quality titles that have come through theatrical on their way to greater success in home entertainment:

An American Rhapsody - $850,000
Bloody Sunday - $775,000
Passion of Mind - $775,000
Focus - $650,000
Love Me If You Dare - $560,000
Mean Creek - $550,000
The Way Home - $450,000
Our Lady of the Assassins - $400,000
Trekkies - $320,000
Festival in Cannes - $300,000

In none of these cases, from bottom to top, is there a major breakout box office hit that failed to happen. But it is not hard to imagine squeezing more from a title like Bloody Sunday, The Way Home, Trekkies, or Our Lady of The Assassins, much less a widely appealing title like Mostly Martha if they were in the hands of a Miramax.

And that is almost exactly what Tom Freston had to say. To quote:

"We've had Paramount Classics, but it's been an also-ran. Miramax, Lion's Gate. This is an area we want to be in. We think we can be major players here. We're looking at acquiring pictures as well as producing and looking at strengthening the management team."

Now, to compare what opportunities Paramount Classics has had afforded it by big Paramount to what Miramax did is just stupid. Miramax started as an truly independent, huge risk-taking, hard charging company that was in some serious financial distress when Disney bought it 11 years ago for about what Kill Bill, Vol 1 grossed last year and significantly less than Kill Bill cost to produce and distribute. Paramount Classics was created and carved a niche out for itself in the manically frugal Jon Dolgen era where they did as was demanded of them… they earned a decent return on investment and never lost the company money.

But Lions Gate seems like a more reasonable and more interesting comparative study.

Lions Gate has had 15 films gross over $10 million domestically in its history. Seven films have grossed over $30 million. Three of those films came from Miramax, where Fahrenheit 9/11, Dogma and O were not able to be released for a variety of reasons. Three of the others were released in the last 12 months - The Punisher with $34 million, Open Water with $31 million and Cabin Fever with $21 million. The seventh film is Monster's Ball, which rode its Oscar-winner Halle Berry to $32.5 million total domestic.

Of those seven films, the only one that would have had any chance to come under Paramount Classics' business plan would be Monster's Ball, which had just a $4 million budget. Open Water, which was a festival pick-up, could potentially have been at P.C., but they have never had the kind of P&A support available to them that Lions Gate spent in getting it to that $31 million gross.

Eight other Lions Gate films grossed between $10 million and $15 million - (in order from highest to lowest) American Psycho, Godsend, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Frailty, House of 1000 Corpses, Confidence, Girl With A Pearl Earring, and The Cookout.

Again, only American Psycho, Frailty and Girl With The Pearl Earring would have any chance of being released under the Paramount Classics banner under Dolgen… and American Psycho would have likely been ruled out for reasons of its content. And as long as we're talking content restriction, Paramount Classics could have had a breakout success that dwarfed even Lions Gate's Miramax pick-up, Fahrenheit 9/11… but the opportunity to pick-up The Passion of The Christ was nixed by Dolgen, in spite of P.C.'s strong relationship with Gibson & Davey's Icon Productions.

So of the 15 big winners that Lions Gate has had, only 3 could have ever found a home under Paramount Classics Dolgen-era plans.

On the other hand, Lions Gate has had a run of 19 well-reviewed, high-profile titles that more closely reflect the level of opportunity that has been given the heads of Paramount Classics:

The Cooler - $8.5 million
Shadow of the Vampire - $8.3 million
Rules of Attraction - $6.5 million
Lantana - $4.5 million
Lovely and Amazing - $4.4 million
Secretary - $4 million
The Cat's Meow - $3.3 million
The Big Kahuna - $3.2 million
Shattered Glass - $2.2 million
Dogville - $1.6 million
Wonderland - $1.1 million
Irreversible - $800,000
Max - $600,000
The Grey Zone - $500,000
Inacto - $230,000
Danny Deckchair - $200,000
Mondays In The Sun - $140,000
The Weight of Water - $100,000
A Slipping Down Life - $100,000

How many of these titles lost money? I'm not sure.

But you'll notice that Lions Gate has released only three foreign language films. Paramount Classics has released eight to $400,000 or more, five of them well over Lions Gate's foreign language high-bar of Irreversible and its $800,000 domestic gross.

And look at what Lions Gate has had to work with… Nicole Kidman, Val Kilmer, John Cusack, Sean Penn, etc, etc. The only movie Paramount Classics has ever had with a major box office name in it is The Singing Detective and they were forced to be a bit coy with Mel Gibson's cameo since his extreme look in the film made him shy about getting too much exposure for his part. Heck, even Paramount Classics' bad Guy Pearce movie beat Lions Gate's bad Guy Pearce movie by more than 10% at the box office.

My point here is not to bring down Lions Gate to build up Paramount Classics. But while the lust for "the next Miramax" is understandable, if unachievable, the perception that Paramount Classics is a lot more than a budget increase for staff, acquisitions, productions, publicity and marketing away from being a Lions Gate-level indie is inaccurate.

Paramount was no more anxious to jump on Fahrenheit 9/11 than Disney or any other major or major's indie arm was. The idea that Jon Dolgen would have ever allowed Paramount Classics to invest $33 million in a comic book movie like The Punisher is patently absurd… and if they would, it would end up at big Paramount. Classics has never released a thriller/horror genre picture or an "urban" picture of any kind. Trekkies, which was the first P.C. release, was a big studio pick-up and the only doc ever released by the Dependent. As Searchlight, New Line, Screen Gems, Dimension and now Focus' Rogue have discovered… these genre pix are often where the greater profits lie… not in quality, but in good old widened appeal. Paramount Classics has never been allowed to explore that territory.

None of this is meant to say that Ruth Vitale and David Dinerstein are perfect. They aren't. No distributor is. But the "also-ran" status of the company has been by design, not a reflection of the personal well of these two veterans. When a guy like Tom Freston takes over a division, flexing muscles is the norm. But change for the sake of change seems silly. And a year or two of a Paramount Classics that is finally allowed to take the chances that Vitale & Dinerstein have often indicated they would like to be able to take could reap the kind of success that Freston is looking for.

Keep in mind, Fox Searchlight's three Oscar-contending titles being released in the next 6 weeks cost over $40 million before P&A. Is that figure two or three times Paramount Classics' overall annual budget?

Ironically, P.C. has two really interesting, quality titles on the verge of release right now. One is the wonderful, smart, edgy and emotional Enduring Love from director Roger Michell, whose The Mother grossed less than $1 million for Sony Classics earlier this summer. Michell, who also directed Paramount's $67 million hit, Changing Lanes, deserves an aggressive marketing effort from the studio. And Freston should fund that and give Dinerstein a chance to flex his marketing muscles.

Then The Machinist, which I have argued from the start should not be being released before Batman Begins makes Christian Bale a much bigger star, could still find a decent audience with the right push.

Unfortunately, time is short on both these releases. And if you look at the successes of Miramax and Lions Gate, you'll see long-legged promotion and publicity efforts that culminate in aggressive spot advertising.

What is the best way to strengthen a management team at a long ill-funded division like Paramount Classics? Give them the tools to get their jobs done. There is a glut of former and want-to-be-former Miramaxers out there. Give Classics the money to hire a few more experienced bodies. And free them up to make the bold move. After all, every area of film distribution is made up of losers, winners and the home runs that move the money meter into the black.

As my pal Ed used to say, "Let the players play and they'll party for days."

Tom Freston can do as he wants. He is the new sheriff in Paramount Town. But before he throws out the baby or the bathwater, he should know for sure whether someone peed in the tub or if he's just missing the scent of the bath oils that Mr. Dolgen made Ms. Vitale return to the store because he thought they were a luxury his employers shouldn't afford a small division of their empire.

E-ME: How would you try to push Paramount Classics into the bigger time?