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Toronto Recap: No Drunken Spending A Good Sign For Indie Film Resurgence

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday September 19, 2011 @ 11:28am PDTTags: 2011 Toronto Film Festival, Adam Scott, Anthony Hopkins, Bradley Cooper, David Thewlis, Derek Cianfrance, Eamonn Bowles, Eduardo Sanchez, Fernando Meirelles, Geoffrey Fletcher, George Clooney, Jason Janego, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Lasse Hallström, Luc Besson, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Mickey Liddell, Oren Moverman, Ryan Gosling, Sarah Polley, Todd Wagner, Tom Quinn, William Friedkin, Woody Harrelson
Mike Fleming

Was the 2011 Toronto Film Festival a good one for dealmaking? Even after organizers announced a 20% uptick in film deals last Friday (the festival includes foreign territories in its count), the sales kept coming. A long-expected deal with Lionsgate on the Jennifer Westfeldt-directed comedy Friends With Kids finally got done (in partnership with Roadside Attractions, which will actually release the film), and Music Box announced overnight it had acquired the Rachel Weisz-starrer The Deep  Blue Sea. Lionsgate was hotly pursuing another film, the Midnight Madness sensation You’re Next, which of all the festival films seems to have the best chance of approaching the box office turned in by Toronto 2010’s breakout Insidious. There have been about 20 acquisitions so far and that many more could come in the next few weeks.

Still, can you call the Toronto acquisitions marketplace “solid” when no films have been bought so far by The Weinstein Company, Sony Pictures Classics, Focus Features, or Fox Searchlight (yeah, I revealed that they bought Shame during Toronto, but it was a deal all but sealed in Venice), or for that matter FilmDistrict, Open Road or Relativity Media, each of which jumped into the distribution business to release films that can play on upwards of 2000 screens? Buyers and sellers said it was a pretty good festival at least. One filled with mostly small deals and a show of distributor discipline that is a positive sign for an indie film sector that just started pulling out of a nosedive this time last year. READ MORE »

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Toronto: As Magnolia Turns 10, Owner Todd Wagner Says It’s Not For Sale And That VOD Strategy Is Thriving

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday September 15, 2011 @ 9:42am PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Eamonn Bowles, Elijah Wood, Harvey Weinstein, James Gray, Jason Janego, Joaquin Phoenix, Kirsten Dunst, Lars von Trier, Mark Cuban, Ryan Gosling, Seann William Scott, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Wagner, Tom Quinn
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Along with everything else about the 2001 Toronto Film Festival, the launch of Magnolia Pictures was quickly forgotten on September 11, as co-founder Eamonn Bowles and other indie film execs scrambled to find ways to get home. Magnolia marked its 10th anniversary at 2011 Toronto. While the company still doesn’t carry the profile of some other indie distributors, Bowles and co-owner Todd Wagner said their model — mixing traditional indie theatrical distribution with emerging digital technology — has made them distinctive and profitable. VOD revenues now often outpace theatrical for Magnolia films, and they return profit to filmmakers because of low P&A spends. Bowles and Wagner have been honing the VOD model since they were branded charlatans by theater chains in 2005 when Steven Soderbergh’s micro-budget film Bubble was released simultaneously on movie screens, VOD and DVD. Wagner and partner Mark Cuban put Magnolia and other film assets under the 2929 Entertainment banner on the selling block earlier this year, but pulled them back when they didn’t get a high price. Wagner said he’s staying.

Magnolia releases 35-40 films each year now, with upcoming releases that include the 2011 Toronto title Melancholia (which got Lars von Trier banned by Cannes for making dumb pro-Nazi comments). Some Magnolia efforts follow a theatrical release cycle, others go direct to DVD. But VOD has increasingly become the distributor’s calling card and Wagner said proof of its viability came when Harvey Weinstein poached Magnolia execs Tom Quinn and Jason Janego to start a VOD venture for The Weinstein Company.

“Harvey’s been in the industry forever, and he thought it was a good enough model to hire some of our folks away,” Wagner told me. “I’m flattered. There are other people doing this now, from IFC to John Sloss. To me, it’s validation that we’ve hit on something. But we’ve got an advantage, a unique collection of assets in the Landmark Theater chain, a home video division, and HDNet. The big theater chains still absolutely won’t play Ultra VOD titles, so having a theater chain is helpful. As is having the television network for the relationships it has made us with all the MSO’s. These synergies allow us to be freewheeling in how we license content. And producers are coming back to us with films because we are cutting them checks. That rarely happens elsewhere because of all the P&A that stands in front of them.” Read More »

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Mark Cuban Taking Offers For Magnolia Pictures, Landmark Theatres

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Tuesday April 19, 2011 @ 3:29pm PDTTags: Auction, Landmark Theatres, Magnolia Pictures, Mark Cuban, Todd Wagner

Mark Cuban told Bloomberg today that he is “just testing the waters” by putting his distribution company Magnolia Pictures and exhibition chain Landmark Theatres up for sale. Regardless, there will be an auction for two of the divisions in Cuban and Todd Wagner’s 2929 Entertainment, which also houses the pair’s cable … Read More »

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2929 Productions Funds ‘Tim And Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie’; Here’s Hoping The Movie’s Funnier Than The Press Release

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday March 14, 2011 @ 5:28pm PDTTags: Adam McKay, Gary Sanchez, Mark Cuban, Tim And Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, Todd Wagner, Will Ferrell
Mike Fleming

2929 Productions is financing Tim And Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, a comedy by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim that’s being produced by Funny Or Die creators at Gary Sanchez Productions. The film company sent out a press release with what I felt was a lame attempt to humorously paint itself … Read More »

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Mark Cuban, Todd Wagner On ‘Troll Hunter’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Monday October 18, 2010 @ 10:22am PDTTags: Andre Ovredal, Magnet Releasing, Mark Cuban, Movie Deals, Movies, Todd Wagner

Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban’s genre label Magnet Releasing has snapped up worldwide rights (excluding Europe) to The Troll Hunter. The film was written and directed by Andre Ovredal. It’s the story of Norwegian film students intent on capturing real-life trolls on camera after learning their existence has been covered up by a government … Read More »

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Don Johnson Awarded $23.2M In ‘Nash Bridges’ Lawsuit Against Rysher

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Wednesday July 7, 2010 @ 2:09pm PDTTags: Courts, Don Johnson, Law, Mark Cuban, Qualia Capital, Todd Wagner

donjohnson1Another hey-you-didn’t-pay-me-my-profits lawsuit. This time a Los Angeles jury sided with Don Johnson who was both the star and a producer on the 1990s crime series Nash Bridges. Johnson sued 3 entertainment companies in 2009, claiming he was owed millions in … Read More »

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