T.G.R.
So you wake up one day and decide you want to make a movie. A comedy. An awesome script, written by people who have a track record who tell you they can get a certain cast. My company sees the potential and we say yes. The story takes place in 2 specific European countries and it so happens that we have very good relationships in both. Up to there, all good. It looks like a slam dunk. A “no brainer” (God I hate that term). And we do our job, properly in the first month of the whole process. We think OMG, this is for real! Yeah! We celebrate and toast and at the end, when we are almost on the brink of announcing it to press we realize our partners are SLOOOOW. AND they oversold their talent relationships. So now, after heavy frustration we decide that this is definitely something we want to do; meaning, we are not going to drop the project. So we push along, assuming now the difficulties of what will be a difficult partnership with our co-producers, and we say F-it. We want to do this. So we push in Country “A” and we push in Country “B”. We start moving forward in both and then, as of last month, we start realizing that “Country “B” which has (had) a vibrant film industry until literally this year, is now collapsing. Everything is tough. Nobody’s committing and the government in Country “B” is not helping by shutting down sources of financing. So we say, fine, anything from Country “B” will do, we’ll just get more from Country “A” where things seem solid… until literally today. A newspaper article today talks about the supreme court of Country “A” declaring all types of mandatory and non-public subsidies and grants coming from TV Stations and media companies in Country “A”, well, UNCONSTITUTIONAL. You’ve got to be shitting me.
Really? Is this happening like this? When SIXTY percent of what I was to get from Country “A” was in the form of now UNCONSTITUTIONAL subsidies and assistances?
Wow. We WERE in Europe because the US is so tough right now to get funding, and now this. Crazy. We now, have to start talking to Equity companies who will pillage our participation IF they want to invest, which becomes much more flimsy. Thankfully we’re out to great cast names, but our strategy might’ve just changed. Now we need the support of the cast we’re getting more than ever. We will need to push to get financing from Studios or basically, we will not succeed. This of course, in the harshest climate ever for Studio investment. You see, 2 years ago, I sold a movie to a major studio when we secured 2 big cast names. They gave us literally close to 45% of the budget. We were able to finance around that. Today, with the same names, the same story and script, I will guarantee you we wouldn’t even get an offer on the table until the movie was somehow, miraculously finished.
The Great Recession baby.
I would love to know how people or independent producers were making movies during the Great Depression. That must’ve been heroic. Don’t you think?
