AGC Studios CEO Stuart Ford has called for a reset of the relationship between U.S. theatrical distributors and the independent production world, saying it is “the hot button issue of the moment” for the latter sector.
“If we want to return to a period of efficiency in the independent film world, there needs to be a collective solution to U.S. theatrical: how it’s done, what the economics of it are and how U.S. theatrical distributors interact with film owners, because I think that relationship is broken at the moment,” said Ford.
He was speaking on a panel exploring monetizing independent film at the Zurich Film Festival‘s Zurich Summit industry event, alongside 30West Executive Vice President Maren Olsen, UTA agent Alex Brunner, Anton CEO Sébastien Raybaud and Katie Irwin, agent & Co-Head of International WME.
Ford was also in Zurich this year as the producer of Justin Kurzel’s The Order which opened the festival on Thursday.
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That film has been acquired for a theatrical release in U.S. by Vertical which has proven a solid partner of late having also released AGC’s Poolman this year, but the producer and film financier suggested these types of partnerships were hard to come-by at present.
He acknowledged that the U.S. theatrical distribution model faced hurdles of its own but said the time was ripe for a reset, with advances and minimum guarantees still way below customary levels of the past and distributors reluctant to get behind productions.
“The appetite of U.S. theatrical distributors of late has been significantly constricted, both in terms of pricing, and we can talk about the economic circumstances that led to that, but also in terms of appetite at all, or willingness to believe we can market films theatrically,” he said.
“What I see right now is quite a big disconnect between what everybody else thinks should be theatrical and what the people who actually need to market the film, put it out theatrically, and take the P&A risk… It’s a damaging disconnect right now that is a real wrinkle in the system.”
He noted that his suggested reticence on the part of the U.S. distributors was having a knock-on effect in terms of getting international buyers on board big projects.
“Internationally, there are, in most territories, multiple distributors who like to release theatrically… the economics may ebb and flow, but there’s still a relatively robust area of the business,” he said. “The real challenge is that those international distributors would like to see the film released theatrically in the US, that’s always been the benchmark.”
“Unless we can find a business model for the asset-holder, financier of the film, to license a film to a US theatrical distributor, and efficiently and transparently monetize the movie, we’re going to continue to have this delta between what a film thinks it’s worth, what the market thinks it’s worth, and what the all important gatekeeper, the U.S theatrical marketplace thinks it’s worth.”
Quizzed on a possible solution, Ford suggested the ball lay primarily in the court of the distribution sector, saying it need to think about its model.
“Culturally, for the last 50 years, and I think the Hollywood Studios began this culture, the whole system of accounting and participation has been, if we’re being honest, heavily slanted towards, “We’ll keep holding the money, and if you own a film, you have exposure.”
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