Adam Scott Joins ‘The Secret Life Of Walter … 
Report: News Corp May Face A U.S. Lawsuit On Hacking 
Midnight Madness For ‘Breaking Dawn’ DVD 
BAFTA Awards: What ‘Artist’, Dujardin, Streep … 
64th BAFTA Awards Winners: ‘The Artist’, Meryl … 
BAFTA 2012 Preview: Very British Affair Takes On … 
RECORD-BREAKING WEEKEND! 4 Films Open $20+M: ‘The … 
Remembered: Jennifer Hudson To Perform Whitney Houston … 
Live From NY, It’s Jean Dujardin On 
R.I.P. Whitney Houston 
TOLDJA! Indomina-BET Buy Sundance ‘LUV’ 
Saoirse Ronan Bigger Teen Action Queen 
WME Signs Writer-Director Jon Kasdan 
‘Glee’s Jane Lynch Joins Indie Film Comedy 
Universal Revives ‘Dracula Year Zero’ With … 
Jodie Foster Sending Mel Gibson Film ‘The … 
‘Roseanne’ Reunion: John Goodman To Co-Star In … 
UPDATE: Closing Arguments Conclude In Golden Globes Trial; … 
Series Adaptation Of ‘Legion’ With … 
Lionsgate Calms Investors With Talk About Charlie Sheen, … 
Ridley Scott Commits To Next Direct McCarthy’s … 
UPDATE: Here’s a new chart I’ll be running weekly. According to the Independent Film & Television Alliance, the trade association representing the companies that produce and distribute “independent films,” IFTA relies on the definition that it started with in 1980: an independent film is one that is financed in majority part from sources other than the six U.S. major studios. This is a pretty black and white test and does not rely on the size of the budget or the subject matter of the film to give it meaning. Budget and subject were introduced to give organizations such as Sundance and the studios themselves a wide latitude to use the label when it became fashionable to do so (or necessary to attract corporate sponsorship). This was well illustrated in 2004-05, when Million Dollar Baby, a film produced and financed by IFTA member Lakeshore, won the Academy Best Picture award, while Sideways, a studio film produced and financed by Fox Searchlight, won Film Independent’s “Independent Spirit” Award.
IFTA believes that a test that relies on economic realities is consistent with the practice in other industries (has anyone ever defined an “independent” hardware store in terms of its “edginess”?). But, more importantly, the economic test is the only way to distinguish between films that are shaped by the six major studio executives and their worldwide distribution networks and those that arise from the creative and financial efforts of the rest of the international film production and distribution industry. The distinction seems pretty obvious outside the United States. It is only here that the lines are sometimes blurred!
FROM THE INDEPENDENT FILM & TELEVISION ALLIANCE
TOP 20 INDEPENDENTLY FINANCED FILMS
Weekend of October 2 – 4, 2009
Exclusive To Deadline Hollywood
TITLE, DISTRIB, WKD BOX OFFICE, SCREENS / AVERAGE, CUME
1. Whip It (Fox Searchlight), $4,650,812, 1,721 / $2,702, $4.6M
2. Fame (MGM), $4,626,952, 3,133 / $1,477, $16.5M
3. Capitalism: A Love Story (Overture), $4,447,378, 962 / $4,623, $4.8M
4. I Can Do Bad All By Myself (Lionsgate), $2,599,720, 1,569 / $1,657, $48.2M
5. Pandorum (Overture), $1,979,061, 2,506 / $790, $7.8M
6. Inglourious Basterds (Weinstein/Uni), $1,419,256, 1,331 / $1,066, $116.8M
7. 9 (Focus Features), $1,398,401, 1,598 / $875, $29.4M
8. Bright Star (Apparition / TVA Films), $716,096, 317 / $2,259, $1.9M
9. Paranormal Activity (Paramount), $532,242, 33 / $16,129, $776K
10. Trailer Park Boys 2 (Alliance Films), $484,072, 198 / $2,445, $2.3M
11. District 9 (Sony), $480,524, 493 / $975, $114.4M
12. The Final Destination** (Warner Bros), $433,380, 535 / $810, $65.4M
13. Sorority Row (Summit), $399,560, 576 / $694, $11.4M
14. Wake Up Sid (UTV Communications), $355,532, 79 / $4,500, $355K
15. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (Freestyle), $305,465, 210 / $1,455, $846K
16. Time Traveler’s Wife** (Warner Bros), $303,728, 440 / $690, $62.2M
17. A Serious Man (Focus Features), $251,337, 6 / $41,890, $251K
18. The September Issue (Roadside Attractions), $219,572, 104 / $2,111, $2.9K
19. Coco Avant Chanel (Sony Pictures Classics), $206,052, 16 / $12,878, $473K
20. More Than A Game (Lionsgate), $182,943, 14 / $13,067, $182K
Analysis by Independent Film & Television Alliance under license from Rentrak Corporation; ©2009 IFTA. All rights reserved. **A New Line production distributed through Warner Brothers.
Loading ...
Wow.
From those figures it’s clear to see that Moore’s new effort is doing very well and Paranormal Activity will open wide to huge figures.
Sometimes it’s just nice to see the numbers
Nikki – I’d be thrilled to tiny little shiny pieces if you’d also start regularly posting box office results ranked by PER SCREEN AVERAGE, which I think is also an important overall barometer. Thanks.
Them there ain’t no independent films. Any film produced or distributed by Sony or Warner etc is not independent. Just because they open up an office on the lot and say it is Indie don’t make it so.
Not seeing a whole lot of indies on this list… By my count 8 at most.
Nikki – no offense but this is an absurd definition of independent… Paramount, Sony, MGM, Warner Brothers… independents? With Sony and WB just because the film is coming from an affiliated label (Tri-Star, New Line) doesn’t make the film independent in any way. This is a really misleading list.
Final Destination, Fame, Inglorious Bastards? What is an independent film anymore? I’m kind of confused. We’ve come a long way from Brother’s McMullen and Down By Law.
Nothing financed by Warner, The Weinsteins, or Sony is an Indy. That’s like calling US indie rock. Respect the effort Nicki but keep it real next time.
Nikki, it’s about time to recall the definition of an “indie”. The only thing Fame is independent of is the glory of Alan Parker’s classic.
The real definition of an indie IMO is very simple. It’s about whether or not the film is financed through private equity and/or pre-sales to international independent distributors, with no studio involvement as opposed to a film “green-lit”, financed and distributed within a studio (including their indie divisions).
So, Lakeshore movies count, for instance, but Fox Searchlight-produced films technically don’t.
As an example, Slumdog was an indie film (Pathe). 500 days of Summer is not.
The one on the list that is questionable is “Whip It”, only because while the producer is independent, it smells like Fox’s money all around. Next is “Inglorious Basterds” I think. And it would depend on how early in the process Universal got involved.
Many of these films aren’t independent films by any stretch of the imagination. I should know because I and some my fellow writers either pitched on them when they were open writing assignments or worked on them as they made their way through the system. I’d like to hear from your readers, but only Paranormal Activity is an independent film in the tradition of Sex, Lies and Videotape and She’s Gotta Have It. That is, made totally independent of the Hollywood system and only picked up FOR distribution after it was completed.
Um… what about Shrink?
Yeah. Some of them are just plain studio flicks, like #2, #6, #11, #12 and #16. Unless they were fully financed by different parties and the studios just have distribution and home video rights, I can’t really say they’re independent films.
Time Traveller’s Wife?!? Since when is a $40 million movie considered INDEPENDENT?!? Give me a break.
Perhaps a definition of the mid-ground category called “Mini Majors” is in order. Then again, even if we had three different categories: Majors, Mini Majors, and Independent; there would still be films that cross into gray areas.
Take Overture’s upcoming release of “Law Abiding Citizen”. This was a $50M budget produced by The Film Market. I can see arguments in either direction here.
The truth is, this is not a black and white question of “Indie or Major” anymore. There are many shades of gray in between.
INVENTION OF LYING should be #1 on this list. It was 100% financed by MRC which is by no means a studio. WB only released it domestically. That should be an INDY
INGLORIOUS BASTERDS was co-financed by Universal – how does that make it an indie?
Isn’t this time consuming and there is boxofficemojo.com etc.
Why do numbers and not geek?
Secondly since I read the book about Mike and Spike and the death of independent film by Pierson, can any film distributed by the Weinstein’s, Lionsgate, Sony (forget the picture part), Fox (trust me based on the letter from their lawyer, they aint searching for new talent), etc etc be truly independent.
Third, when was the last time you heard someone borrow money from friends and family and max their credit cards out get listed for a “Sundance, Independent or any other film festival award.
It’s all about the distributor, oops, I meant the money in independent film.
I cannot wait until film makers decide to charge a dollar for their films and stop the hackers from exploiting their digital independent films of any length. Then we can knock off the major conglomerates whose films are shown for a dollar at the discount theatre, five dollars at the major theatres and pop our own disgusting popcorn instead of the cardboard they serve up at the independent movie chains for 6.75 a bag or 14 for a single size pizza with a soda.
“Paranormal Activity” was hardly a typical studio production. Peli, an Israeli-born video game designer who had no formal film training, shot the $15,000 movie in a week in 2006 with a no-name cast, a crew of several San Diego friends and a hand-held video camera.
—it was NOT picked up by Sundance.
“Once every five years, a guy makes a movie for a nickel that can cross over to a broad audience,” says “Paranormal Activity” producer Jason Blum, who, as a senior executive at Miramax Films, had a producing credit on “The Reader” and acquired the supernatural thriller “The Others.” “And there are about 3,000 of these movies made every year, so this film is about one in 15,000.”
—that’s another thing, what was considered truly indie way back when, is now a saturated ‘market’ of questionable product.
@Thierry: Nikki, it’s about time to recall the definition of an “indie”.
@HSCOTT: Respect the effort Nicki but keep it real next time.
That definition of an independent film – “an independent film is one that is financed in majority part from sources other than the six U.S. major studios” – is the one used by the US film industry. It is not one Nikki made up for the purposes of this chart.
If you want to whine about the films in that list not being independent, write to the IFTA and everyone involved in making films in the US, and get them to change their minds.
It is as though people do not read the article – Nikki makes clear her definition of an independent film – if a majority (i.e. over 50%) of the funding comes from outside of the six major studios.
So if a majority of the funding is not from MGM, Sony, Disney, Universal, Warner Brothers, or Paramount, it is an independent film. Doesn’t matter how much the budget is – just matters whether the majority of the financing came from those six sources or not.
If you look at the funding of Fame, you’ll see quickly that it was a Lakeshore production – in this case, they provided over 50% of the financing. That might mean MGM provided 49%. But Lakeshore provided at least 51%.
The matter of New Line is trickier, since they’re allowed to operate as an independent studio within Time Warner, but that is why Time Traveler’s Wife and Final Destination are starred on the list. I question their inclusion, but it’s not an unreasonable decision.
The point is this…there are no indie films. None that are being seen that is. There are plenty of indie films being made by independent producers, but no-one will distribute them. They go to festivals, may be. If the majors don’t make a movie just like it with a long established star/cast and submit it sooner.
“Indie” sounds cool. Thats what people want. To see indie films…so why not just call studio films indie films! Its just a marketing strategy. Indie sounds small and accessible and different, edgy, ect… just because Brad Pitt is starring in it and Tarantino is directing him, don’t hold that against the ‘Indie’ film style!
Its just a style or “theme” film. Like Black people in a movie is a “Black Themed” Film. Hollywood is absurd. Don’t try to understand them. Just do your best to see an actual indie film. They need your support. Hard as it is to find them. Just ignore the re-makes they push on us as if this is the first time we are seeing Fame! They are just trying to make money, not art.
And ‘maybe’ is a big word. Have you seen coverage of those festivals and their screenings? It’s a red carpet event full of suits, stars, and corporate sponsors. Indies are supposed to MAKE stars. I don’t think Brothers Mcmullen for example would have gotten the attention it got then, now. Not everyone and their mother was picking up a camera, and maxing out their credit cards to make a movie. And now? I can’t imagine the time and material lenght they must go through to pick films.
There’s a lot of grey in that black & white definition of “independant”
Nikki – Laudable but…Independent film = no stars and by new or emerging filmmakers. Period. Very simple. Not that there’s anything (necessarily) wrong with overstuffed, multi-million-dollar-budgeted star vehicles with tens of millions in marketing dollars behind them. They’re just not independent films. And every time one is bestowed the independent label, you prolong the ‘myth’ of independent film and you diminish the value of truly independent films in the eyes of the media, film-goers and the thousands of talented filmmakers across America who won’t even try because they think they have to raise millions of dollars and cast Brad Pitt to be successful.
This isn’t Nikki’s definition – it’s from the IFTA.
I agree that there should be a new definition of “independent”. When Sex, Lies & Videotape screened @ Sundance everything changed. Majors found a new way to make money by opening little boutiques and calling them ‘Independent’ (as if the boutiques were independent of the majors – please). It was like an art movement, which has by now been monetized and exploited beyond recognition. Tons of good movies have been made under this new system, but it’s become bloated with too many spoons stirring the pot, to the point we can’t even taste the soup anymore – soup that might just as well have come out of a can.
Just calling something something, doesn’t make it something.
In my opinion a film with a budget under $3.75 million (and in need of a SAG low budget agreement) is an “indie”, while an “independent” is a film produced and/or distributed by indie/arthouse film divisions of major studios (Fox Searchlight Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Focus Features, etc).
They also have stars that are not really attached for the money but mostly because they really like the script and/or they’re dying to work with a particular filmmaker(or they simply want to showcase their skills and hopefully win an Oscar). Unlike indies, independents can have budgets that rival that of major studio films.
Most of these are far from being independent films. Give us a break. Don’t insult filmmakers who really produce independent films.
The IFTA definition is the most valid definition of indie because it’s not based on a subjective and/or aesthetic determination. Please READ the post before you comment. It does not list the producers/financiers, it list the DISTRIBUTORS. Thanks to Nikki for posting this list. It’s interesting and will become even more interesting as the studios decrease their slates.