Indies in distress
A week after coming home from the Toronto International Film Festival the thunder about Toronto continues to be that there was no real thunder in Toronto.
Yes there were some unmitigated hits, and I've gone over those. But business-wise there was very little happening among the independent films that were looking to get picked up, and general opinion is that's the result of the entire concept of independent films getting way out of wack.
Here are some of the names of stars attached to films that weren't snatched up right away -- Bill Murray, Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, Jennifer Connelly, Robert Duvall, Samuel L. Jackson. And here are some of the companies which walked away without buying anything: Fox Searchlight, Focus, Lionsgate, Miramax.
What's wrong with this picture? Just about everything. And that's what went wrong in Toronto. The indie bubble burst, just like the tech bubble and mortgage bubble and so many other bubbles before.
First off, what are those big name stars doing in "indie" movies? Indie movies are supposed to to star the guy from the convenience store down the street or the struggling actor who's had three TV gigs. Each one of those names has taken home million-dollar paydays over the years. How indie can they be?
Beyond that, most of the studios buying these indies are directly tied to some huge conglomerate. How indie is that?
The whole concept of what constitutes an indie film has been twisted. And the market's thirst for the sort of artsy self-indulgent films that crowd indie theatrs has its limits, something distributors have finally figured out.
Not that I'm necessarily trashing these artsy self-indulgent films -- many of my favorite flicks would fall in the category -- but far more of them are made than audiences want to watch. Sad but true, it's a Transformers world. Don't blame me.
So this year the buyers simply didn't buy, or at least not much (acquisitions are, of course, trickling in in the wake of Toronto's dismal showing). And they didn't shell out big bucks for what they did buy, either.
Part of this is because there was no "Little Miss Sunshine" to be bought. Most of it has to do with mainstream movie theaters playing blockbusters all the time and the death of middle movies.
Middle movies -- and middle movies are a big part of what plays at Toronto these days -- end up at the art houses, thus pushing true art house flicks into the street.
Look at the new Coen brothers film, "A Serious Man" or Michael Moore's "Capitalism." In a sane world these would open at the multiplex, but since nine screens are filled with "Whip It" next week, they'll be relegated to art houses.
Again, this is all audience driven and what it may come down to is -- gasp! -- Hollywood just has too much talent wanting to make movies that few people actually want to see.
As artists, that is certainly their choice. But the time has come when they can no longer expect moneymen to cough up the cash to finance these films because the moneymen on the other end won't be ponying up to buy them when they're done.
Is this the end of independent filmmaking? Of course not, but it probably signals a serious deflation.
There are still fools willing to scam credit cards and run up 50 grand in debt -- Yo, Kevin Smith, you're still the model -- to make a movie starring their girlfriend, a neighbor and the guy who taught drama in high school. And 99 times out of 100 that movie will suck.
But that other time, that one time, a spark of genius will surface. And the spirit of independent film will live on.
Just don't expect somebody to hand over 3 million for the chance to distribute it. Those days may be gone forever.
