That Better Film Biz? Here's Why It's Already Underway
Ten truths that explain what will happen next
I’ve called it Distribution as a Service (DaaS). And Disintermediated Distribution. But it is far more than either of those.
It is a different investment model. And a different relationship with talent. And rights ownership. It really is a whole other approach to value, in that it enhances and does not extract. It is founded on the opposite of get yours and get out.
I need a name of this new ecosystem, the one I wrote about last week, the one that covers the mainstream and beyond. It’s hard to come up with a name because it is easiest to describe it by what it is not. And unfortunately so often what starts off with a good name — like Hollywood — grows rotten by the bad behavior of just a few. Hollywood accounting. Hollywood swagger. Hollywood abuse. The first word was good, but it soon became more associated with the second… each and every time.
This new ecosystem is defined by alignment between the participants, by better incentives for all, by true partnership. We don’t give up rights. We grow a financing community around marketing spend. We partner internationally. And we invest in the artist, long term. Chew on that for awhile and we can return to The Name Game at the end of today’s post..
Today, let’s look at what makes this new model The Next Good Thing To Happen.
First and foremost, every cultural industry other than cinema has reduced their reliance on the middle managers and moved from an ecosystem predicated on others’ owning their work to one where the artists hire third party services to do what the largest corporations once did. This is what others call distintermediation — and thus why I’ve fallen prone to doing the same thing. This shift also facilitates a complete reversal on who owns the IP; it makes what we now call a big win — say getting your rights back after 25 years— far too long to wait. We can do much better.
The creator side of the filmmaking business is not only already deep into this game but also building full service enterprises with diverse revenue streams on top of it. Meanwhile the The Players In The Trad Realm just keep on keeping on doing what they’ve always done. This is why our business stagnates. And why do we allow this? Because the #1 Truth of TheFKATheFilmBiz is that people will do whatever is the safest way to keep their jobs (i.e. don’t encourage change and say no as often as you can).
People talk about a distribution crisis in American cinema, but as I’ve pointed out many times, we have well over one hundred theatrical distributors (particularly when you look at the service and hybrid providers) in this country. And I’ve asked many times how we can reconcile those two things — but no one seems to want to answer that. So allow me now.
We have so many distribution companies because rights acquisition is a good business — particularly when you can get away with doing the bare minimum in exchange. The reason we have so many distributors is not because they help filmmakers, or even often work on their behalf. We need to wake up and recognize that the long term transfer of rights in exchange for the minimal viable value-enhancement is no longer is something most of us should participate in — or facilitate. There is a much better business for the filmmakers, their supporters, and even for the sales agents, exhibitors and a very wide range of service providers. Embracing this will improve the FKATheFilmBiz for everyone.
