Slingshot's Second Picture Syndrome
The news will hit the press this week, but as ever I wanted loyal blog-readers to hear it first here. We’re announcing a new string to our movie-bow, here at slingshot (god that’s an awful mix of weapon metaphors).
Building on what we’ve learnt about developing great scripts for low budget movies, we are launching, with some top-draw, super-deluxe, heap impressive partners (Salt, Ingenious and Optimum and with the continued support of Skillset) a new development strand – SECOND PICTURE SYNDROME – a process for making a slate of mid budget ($10-25m) commercial, genre pictures designed to cross over into the US and internationally.
More information, including who can apply and how, here.
February 4th, 2009 at 06:25
That’s interesting- did you learn that it is easier to get backing for a mid-budget film than a low budget one?
And in a semi-related, but more pressing question, is it true that Torment has found US distribution and is due out in July?
February 4th, 2009 at 10:18
HI Christopher:
There are certainly some who feel its lower risk to spend $10m rather than $1m on a movie, but that’s not quite our experience. Its more a case of different tactics for different games Ultra low budget movies such as the ones we have mainly focused on to date are essentially local. Their designed for a local theatrical audience and the probability is that in the rest of the world they will be TV / DVD titles. Every now and then you get to hit one out of the park (as we seem to with TORMENTED, see below and touch lots of wood) but that’s the exception, yada yada.
Designing movies for global appeal take more money. 2PS is about movies that will work in all the major territories – in particular the US.
On your TORMENTED question, the only release date we’re making public right now is UK 22 May. Watch this – and the tormented site – for details on other territories. But they will follow….
February 9th, 2009 at 04:09
May I ask you a hypothetical question? let’s say you made a movie on an utra-low budget movie, and you were to get picked up for distribution in the United States by a company like Paramount and/or Dreamworks. Hypothetically, would that guarantee the movie would be profitable, at least to your company? I have no idea how much money you would get from an American distributor, if you get paid upfront, plus a share of profits, how much you get for TV showings and Video distribution, etc. But it seems to me that you would be pretty close to profitablity even before the film was released. Or am I completely off-base?
February 13th, 2009 at 11:20
Good idea – there are many tricky chasms in a career and this is an often over looked one. I would suggest however that many people’s second feature is not as good as their first because they rush it. I hope that this scheme allows creatives to dwell on their film, rather than get it out quick.
February 14th, 2009 at 02:18
Tim: then intention is to support financially, morally, intellectually and with information and peer driven process that evolution of the second film. We haven’t designed it to slow down the process, by neither to rush it. More deliberate speed, less haste, perhaps.
Chris: that’s a how long is a piece of string hypothesis, I’m afraid. One can sell a low budget movie to the US for everything from nothing to high single digit millions. So yes, an American theatrical buy is a good thing, but how good depends on the budget and the deal.