|
EntertainmentIndustry.net
There are so many variations of studio deals that its entirely possible that a production company could independently finance their own development and then simply “hire” a studio to distribute or make advance deals with foreign partners (such as Germany’s Kinowelt or Sweden’s AB Svensk Filmindusgtri) to put up co-production funds or distribute to specific territories. It’s equally possible that an “independent” production company is simply “between deals.”
Nicolas Cage's Saturn Pictures is currently independent. Veteran producer Gale Anne Hurd has tried all sorts of variations with her successful Valhalla Motion Pictures and is currently unbetrothed. Mel Gibson’s Icon took a huge risk by doing Passion of the Christ completely independently — and that paid off famously, positioning him as a well-respected businessman adding even more long-term industry and marketplace clout and power than his inevitably fickle and fleeting A-List Actor stardom ever could.
Craft guilds and unions have almost uniformly added concessions to their basic agreements to lower the floor for wage and benefit terms to more realistically accommodate the economics of more modestly-budgeted independent films. Actors and directors of considerable reputation and talent will often work for scale or a fraction of their normal salaries (or for back-end profit participation) on lower-budgeted projects in exchange for roles or films that are more challenging and meaningful than those generally offered by the big studios.
Films like Chasing Amy, In The Bedroom, Monster’s Ball, Billy Elliot, The Usual Suspects, and Snatch (whose budgets were $250,000, $1.7 million, $4 million, $5 million, $6 million and $6 million, respectively) and featured such talent as Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, Sissy Spacek, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Spacey and Brad Pitt — were all negotiated with contracts outside the industry standards typically established by studio films.
|
