If I Only Had a Big Enough Budget…
December 27th, 2008 by Alec McNayrPosted in Business, Film, Marketing | No Comments »
Independent producers beware.
If your mantra is “if I could only get the money, I’d be a success,” check out the story of Delgo, an animated film with all the right pieces, but the wrong execution.
The film’s creator/producer/director wanted to create a big-budget animated film without the help of Hollywood powerhouse studios. He lined up big-time name voice talent (well, Freddy Prinze Jr.), and pitched the finished product around for distribution. No takers.
No takers after $40 million was spent? That’s the first problem. If you don’t have a plausible and meaningful experience to show after $40 million, you’re in trouble. He financed the distribution himself, launching in over 2,160 theatres. But the first weekend take was $511,920 — the all-time lowest for a wide box office opening.
But perhaps the biggest problem was that he failed to consider the marketing costs needed to “stand out in the already crowded holiday movie season.”
Know this: a $40 million-dollar movie is actually an $80 million movie. It takes time, effort, resources, and a strategic team to deploy a movie (that’s why studios will never go away). Independent, DIY creators must remember that it takes a team to create buzz — the necessary buzz to generate action (the kind of action that means $$$).
The internet can serve as a quick community-building tool for building buzz, but it isn’t cheap. It’s not free. It’s not “viral.” Real buzz that translates into revenues is a calculated strategy executed well.
For $40 million, I would have created a company that generated a lot of small, consumable content, and built an audience — a legion — of loyal children and pre-teens to get behind the storylines and the world. And then license the heck out of it. Figurines, t-shirts, stickers, and social network add-ons. For that kind of money, you could run for 2-3 years.
With a track record and a loyal core audience, then you might get a studio to back a movie. Or just return a call…
