Variety
August 7, 2000
By John Dempsey
NEW YORK They may have graced the credits of hit movies in the last few years, but Cameron Diaz, Gary Sinise, Joseph Fiennes and Woody Allen are among the stars whose next project may well be premiering on a television screen near you.
Busted theatricals -- the pejorative term for feature films that bypass multiplexes and make their U.S. debut on pay TV networks like HBO, Showtime and Starz! -- are on the rise, and well-known faces are beginning to show up in them more frequently.
One of the reasons stars are landing in busted theatricals is the high cost of releasing a film.
"It's the midrange movies that have the biggest problem," says Randy Manis, VP of acquisitions and business affairs for Lions Gate. Big-budget movies automatically begin life in U.S. theaters because the contracts of the producers, director and the top actors often guarantee a theatrical release.
The huge money riding on such pictures dictates that the studio lay out the additional $10 million to $20 million or more in marketing dollars, trying to create a hype-generated stampede at the box office.
At the opposite end, small-budget, quirky movies often fill the distribution slates of the specialty divisions of the majors, companies like Miramax, Fine Line, Sony Pictures Classics, Fox Searchlight and Paramount Classics.
As Manis puts it, "If you don't have Mel Gibson in the movie, or you don't qualify as an arthouse specialty item, there's a real risk that you'll leave a lot of money on the table if you go into the theaters and fail to find an audience."
Age factor
Target audience, too, is a factor in whether a film debuts at the cineplex or on Cinemax. "Starz! is looking for movies with older appeal," says Steve Shelanski, senior VP of program acquisitions for the Starz-Encore Group. Shelanski cites as such nuggets busted theatricals like "The Unknown Cyclist," a social-issues movie about AIDS victims; the sophisticated Euro-made comedy "Relative Values," with Julie Andrews, based on a Noel Coward play; and "Do Not Disturb," a mystery puzzle with William Hurt.
The distributors of these movies decided not to take a chance releasing them to U.S. theaters, Shelanski says, because "the bulk of the movie-going audience here consists of teenagers," who pump up the grosses of mass-appeal pictures like "X-Men" and "Scary Movie" by going back to see them a second and third time.
Cash up front
So it's not surprising, says Matthew Duda, exec VP of program acquisitions and planning for Showtime Networks, that so many theatricals sidestep the movie houses and try to morph into pay TV world premieres, which can fetch as much as the $4 million harvested from Showtime for the U.S. debut of Adrian Lyne's "Lolita" in 1998.
HBO will pay between $1 million and $2.5 million for a high-visibility busted theatrical, while Showtime just last month ponied up a strapping $2 million to get exclusive dibs on the U.S. premiere of MGM's "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her," starring Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart, Glenn Close and Holly Hunter. And while that may not seem like a lot of money for a star-fronted film, consider the rates for busted theatricals without star power: Showtime's average payout for a busted theatrical ranges between $350,000 and $700,000, and Starz! averages $650,000.
HBO buys lots of busted low-budget action movies for mid-to-high six figures, premiering them in a regularly scheduled Friday-night slot. But if HBO didn't buy these Friday movies, they'd engineer their world premieres in videostores, not the multiplexes.
Low risk
There are other perks to producers' opening a movie with a guaranteed payday on television rather than risking empty theater seats -- including exacting a more lucrative license fee from pay TV, as well as earning a richer backend at the videostore.
For instance, if a movie flops in U.S. theaters, the distrib will have to settle for a license fee as low as $75,000 from pay TV, since such output deals are based on a sliding scale tied directly to domestic box office performance.
Moreover, both Shelanski and Duda say that Starz! and Showtime will heavily promote many of their busted theatricals, inviting reviews which could help a picture add between $1 million and $3 million from video sales and rentals.
More on board
And other outlets are lining up to catch a falling star. USA and TNT will spring for a theatrically challenged movie that fits their audience profile. And the Internet is always looking for content as streaming technology improves.
Ultimately, no one involved in a theatrical -- stars or distributors -- wants to be involved with a movie that tanks at the box office. And pay TV is becoming an accepted, safe outlet.
"There's no question that the stigma is falling away from opening a movie on pay TV instead of in the theaters," says Jonathan Dana, a producer's rep who has brokered a number of these deals. "You can actually maintain your dignity and not be a pariah if your movie premieres on Showtime or Starz!."
STARS FALLING ON CABLE
| Movie | Star | Cost* |
| HBO / Cinemax | ||
| Letters From A Killer | Patrick Swayze | 40-50 |
| Picking Up The Pieces | Woody Allen | 20 |
| The Patriot | Steven Segal | 20-30 |
| Thick As Thieves | Alec Baldwin | N/A |
| Showtime | ||
| Big Brass Ring | William Hurt | 5.5 |
| Lolita | Jeremy Irons | 62 |
| Snow White | Sigourney Weaver | 25-30 |
| Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her | Cameron Diaz | N/A |
| STARZ! | ||
| Bruno | Gary Sinise | 10 |
| Forever Mine | Joseph Fiennes | 20 |
| Free Money | Marlon Brando | 30 |
| Onegin | Ralph Fiennes | 15 |
(*) estimated (in millions of $)
COPYRIGHT 2000 Cahners Publishing Company
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group
