Indie Film’s Breakout Year: Good Movies Rise in Popularity Amid Strikes and Superhero Fatigue

The indie box office has exploded this year and gone one step further post-Covid, with an eclectic selection of releases that have taken off artistically and financially.

Independents and mini-majors recorded $1.47 billion in box office revenue as of Dec. 27, up from $811.7 million in 2022, according to Comscore.

Focus Features had its biggest limited opening of the year with Wes Anderson’s Asteroid city ($28 million gross). Alexander Payne The survivors Starring Paul Giamatti ($17.9 million) drew older demos, finicky but ultimately comfortable in theaters. The same goes for MGMs HeavenA film Amazon originally planned to bring directly to Prime Video reached a core 45-plus audience and earned $52 million.

A24s past lives, Celine Song’s multi-nominated first film, which grossed $10.9 million and is a low-budget horror Talk to me $48 million released. Raunchy teen comedy from Emma Seligman Bottoms from MGM was $12 million. A fall gold mine heading into awards season Anatomy of a fall, origin And Ferrari of neon; A24s Priscilla, Dream scenario And The Iron Claw; salt burn, American fiction And Enter the boys Boat from MGM; Poor stuff And We are all strangers of Searchlight photos and Waitress: The Musical Bleeker Street and, as mentioned above, The survivors. A constellation of indie distributors, from Sony Pictures Classics to Magnolia Pictures, IFC Films, Utopia, Oscilloscope, Kino Lorber, Roadside Attractions, Greenwich Entertainment, IFC Films, Sideshow/Janus, Music Box, Picturehouse, Crunchyroll, GKids, Well Go USA, Blue Fox, Mubi and dozens of others have had successful releases.

Sound of freedom from Angel Studios earned $184 million.

Godzilla minus one from Toho was a sleeper hit, punching above its weight at $44 million.

And radical by Pantelion/partner with Eugenio Derbez earned $8.6 million.

Indian films flooded cinemas and regularly topped the top ten of the weekend Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire, Dunki, Jawan, Animal, Jailer Gadar 4 And Pathan.

A24’s reissue of the concert film The Talking Heads Stop making sense by Jonathan Demme cost $5 million – more than the original 1984 release. The same goes for the remastered version of Neon old boy for $1.75 million, more than the theatrical release of the 2003 Park Chan-Wook film.

“I think there will be a huge resurgence of indie films this year,” said Paul Degarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

“These films can really make a splash, not just at the box office, but creatively and critically. Theater based. On a profitability basis. They should be considered hits.” Although they don’t make up a large percentage of the total box office, “it’s the overall performance of some of these indie films that is very important.”

An anomaly this year: Big guns indies A24 and Neon had interim contracts with SAG-AFTRA that allowed them to promote films during the long actors’ strike. The studios were unable to do so, so they pushed forward with a few releases (Warner Bros. moved). Dune: Part Two From November to March 2024, MGM bumped challenger from September to April, to name just a few).

Fewer big films in the market may have helped independents.

Even the much-vaunted fan boredom with half-baked studio superhero films hasn’t hurt the indie business.

But: “It’s not like people are going to see bad independent films in the cinema. “People appreciate quality,” says Jonathan Sehring, who launched Sideshow two and a half years ago with Janus Films and made his debut with Drive my car. This year’s releases included The Eight Mountains, Orlando, my political biography and this from Wim Wender Anselm.

Kevin Wilson, head of theatrical distribution at Amazon and MGM, is optimistic about original content in 2024 given the strong end to the year. “These types of films have had some breakouts that we haven’t seen in a long time… I think there is more room for that next year. I think movie buffs and mature viewers are now paying more attention to what’s available to them in the cinema because, frankly, there hasn’t been enough for them in recent years. It’s all content driven. When the content is there, they leave.”

“Overall, this year has been encouraging,” agreed Lisa Bunnell, sales manager at Focus Features.

Get out of the blues

A24, who released 14 releases this year, including Ari Asters Beau is scared, You hurt my feelings And All unpaved roads taste of salt, signed a multi-year production deal with Warner Bros./Max at the beginning of December, causing a lot of talk among indie distributors. Output deals that make money and allow distributors to offer more expensive films at festivals have become increasingly rare, and the best indie distributors can hope for are one-off deals with various streamers, big or small.

“I am very pleased with A24’s new production agreement,” said Arianna Bocco, longtime head of IFC Films, who left earlier this year. “But part of the discussion is: Can we find a model that is not entirely dependent on an output transaction and where there is a healthy open market?” With a big streamer there is so much choice “that if If you are not really well positioned, you will get lost in the crowd.”

A24’s overall success “is an exciting reminder of where others can eventually go,” said Kyle Greenberg, Utopia’s chief marketing officer. “What they do is essential to art films.” Utopia (Shiva baby, everyone is going to the World’s Fair, holy spider, I’m sick of it) is currently being launched The sweet east Buy Sean Price Williams.

“It’s an interesting time where Marvel and superhero films are getting less attention. Hopefully this will create space for more original films and stories,” he said. “But [indie distributors] still compete with studios. And streamers have great filmmakers on their roster” by Tod Haynes May December (Netflix) to Martin Scorsese Flower Moon Killer (Apple) this year.

“How do you compete when there are many other companies? [who] Are you spending too much on things to make a name for yourself?” asks Kyle Westphal, head of theatrical sales at Music Box Films (Fremont, The Unknown Land, L’Immensita’). “You can’t keep up with it. Because if they say, “We want to pay a million dollars for this,” and their business model is to lose money, you say, “I want to be stuck with a million dollars and ten cents,” knowing that you don’t get it back no sense.

“I don’t have a satisfactory answer. However, there is still a hunger for quality films. “There are people who are still hungry for independent and international films,” he said.

“Maybe some days you’ll be lucky with streaming. Some days you are happy with things that are more traditional. Airlines still license independent films. There are many ways to offset costs that aren’t sexy and don’t grab the headlines. It is not always an output agreement. It’s often a combination of things,” Westphal said. “There is no panacea. If you have an output agreement, that’s great. But for an independent distributor that’s not in that position, it’s still a matter of how much you can get in theaters, how much you can get on a smaller streamer, how much you can get on transactional films, how much you can get How much can you get from almost any airline revenue source?

What is an Indie?

As the entertainment landscape changes, defining an independent film or a specialty film has become a bit more difficult. This year’s Comscore list does not include films from the five major Hollywood studios. These include Focus, Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics, which are studio partners, as well as Amazon MGM Studios. It did Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour And Renaissance: A Beyoncé Movie both distributed by AMC Entertainment through Variance Films and event programming by Fathom (Blind people amounting to $17 million) and Trafalgar (BTS: is not in theaters yet $8.7 million earned).

“I find [independent] is in the eye of the beholder,” said Degarabedian.

Sound of freedom earn more than in their own country Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ($17 million) and Mission: Impossible – dead reckoning ($172 million). Indian cinema is a good example of how boundaries are blurring because they can be great epics but they attract a specialized audience.

“Wes Anderson films have become so big that in some cases you just have to say at the box office, ‘Oh, it’s not an indie film.’ Then look at the budget or the director.”

What indie distributors big and small have in common: They’re looking for original ideas and promoting new talent. said Kyle Greenberg, head of marketing and sales at Utopia. “We must defend art. People don’t go to the Louvre, look at the Mona Lisa and ask how much money it made. Yes, sales is clearly a business. But we must remember that cinema is an art form.”

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