Glen Reynolds, Founder of Circus Road Films: And in those cases many filmmakers
just don't understand that what they're getting into, they think I got a distributor,
my life is saved, my film is going to make a lot of money and they're going to market it.
Film Courage: This is a hard topic for us to bring up but I'm hoping maybe you can clear up
some misconceptions we often hear that filmmakers aren't making money from distribution deals
but at the same time we hear that you can make great money working in distribution?
Can you can you help us understand here?
Glen: Well, yes so in my opinion most people aren't making money from distribution because
most films just don't work because the public didn't decide to click on your movie. They
didn't buy a ticket. There's just a lot more. there's just a lot more content being created by
the streamers and by studios that and and we've got other ways of entertaining ourselves in
movies these days games and tick-tock and whatever that's there's just not a lot of as much demand as
not a lot of demand compared to the supply at the end of the day and so I find that and distributors
are in the job of taking a cert out a certain number of films a year they know that some are
going to work they know by experience not all of them are going to work and they're going
to do about the same thing on every film maybe treating one a little better a little bit more PNA
[Prints and Advertising] more advertising dollars behind it in order to make it work
and they're going to so they're going to take each one out and if one doesn't work it's going to then
go through the motions of trying to get a t if it didn't work in theatrical
and or transactional VOD like iTunes and Amazon where people can rent and buy it it didn't work
there they're still going to try to sell it to HBO or Hulu if they can if it doesn't work there then
they're going to put it on advertising video man demand channels like Tube or Pluto that pay small
royalties per view right and that's what most that's the windowing that most distributors do
and there's not a lot to that right it's just placement it's salesmanship and placement
and they're not going to spit like if a film didn't work in the very beginning they're not
going to keep spending advertising dollars they're going to keep there's not much for them to do
and I think filmmakers feel like hey you're not doing anything for my movie well but should they
be doing anything for your movie if they did more for your movie they would probably lose more money
if the film didn't work on the outset if it didn't connect in the first three months of its life it's
it's not going to make money and that's and it's going to stay with that distributor and
they're going to put it through the platforms properly but if they were to spend more time and
effort trying to monetize it they would lose and you wouldn't make any more money is the reality
in addition I think in general distributors are pretty bad at communicating that
to filmmakers I constantly am having to preach that on their behalf
to my clients and other people in the business because I've gone on to there's platforms out
there where people vent about distribution right and I see who they're who they're venting about
and I know the I know and some yes there are so there there are some scumbags out
there that no one should ever go near but there are some people they're venting about on there
that I know are running honest businesses and doing it properly but they're just not going to
be your best friend forever right they're not going to be the best friend of the film
forever they're just going to do their job if it works great if it doesn't it doesn't
I also find some some filmers just don't understand their contracts when they get into them
there are some distributors of a certain level that are saying okay we're going to put the
film out theatrically we're going to spend this amount of money and here's a big check
and that's a great that's great and you forget about that for a second but most deals are with
distributors that are not putting up any money and just going to take it out on the various
digital platforms and try to sell off Netflix and Hulu later etc and in those cases many filmmakers
just don't understand that that's what they're getting into they think I got a distributor
my life is saved my film is going to make a lot of money and they're going to market it without even
talking to them about marketing and sometimes these contracts even literally say we're not
hiring a publicist we're not marketing the film we have the option to but we're not pledging to
and so if you go in thinking your server's going to do one thing and they don't do it
then there's then you're getting on some platform and saying oh I hate so-and-so
and so that's why I see a lot of that that's not to diminish the people that do get screwed over
there are there are companies there are bad actors out there but there are a lot of distributors that
just I think a are doing the job properly if if even if they are falling a little short
on the communication of why the films are not working to their clients
so it's kind of a barring someone being dishonest if a company is honest but but then you have
filmmaker a over here who feels like I'm not being given attention and my movie's just being
shoved to the back it sounds like there's just the communication is just really broken
and one is a business person the other is kind of an artist that's very possessive over there
their work yeah and they're not meeting in the middle yeah I think that's right and I think
and that's not to say I wish that distributors could be a little bit more communicative and a
little bit more in kind of in general even the ones I like could be a little bit more
responsive to phone calls and emails from clients but I think to a certain degree a lot of these
companies are taking a lot of films and they've got to kind of move on to the things that work
and not all filmmakers are are personable nice people either right you get some
filmmakers that have screws loose or are have napoleonic complexes or whatever they have
and and and they're coming after them with phone call after phone call day after day and as a
distributor like do I have to deal with that or I don't I don't have a contractual obligation
to call back a jerk right I'm going to move on and start working I'm working just like I do
any other film whether he's a jerk or not I'm going to do the same thing right I'm just going
to stop talking to him because he's just wasting my time right now most filmmakers aren't like that
but there are that does happen and I think that because that happens that also makes distributors
a little bit more reticent to be personable and and and and communicate with their filmmakers in
case it turns into that kind of like like why am I in this conversation with this person who
I put their film out it's not making me any more money to talk to them about what's happening yes
they're my client but what what is there to do at this point and the reality too is
hard about this too is that some of these contracts are seven ten years long
right and so filmmakers quite often feel stuck they're like they're not doing anything with my
movie I can't get it back well the problem there is what do you do when you get it back you're not
get no other distributor's going to take it after it's been distributed by somebody else
you're not going to be able to get Netflix or Hulu or so so and so to look at it most likely they've
already shown it to them and they've passed if you get it back if they do agree if they do agree to
give it back to you you're going to get extracted from all these digital platforms that it's on they
can't just turn the hose over to you and have the financials just start go you have to pull it off
and then you have a hard time getting it back on because some of those some of those platforms
are like we've had this film before x like we don't want old films and so it's and so
people end up putting on Amazon prime or kind of direct themselves and it just sits there and
doesn't make any money anyway so most filmmakers should be if they can moving on to the next thing
at that point what's my next project how can I take whatever happened here make some good out
of it and hype it towards getting my next thing done because once you've got once you've made
that distribution deal whether you're in a good situation or a bad situation you're
that's it that's your your film is that's going to be the story of your film one way or the other
it's kind of an illusion that you can get it back at some point and and make something out
of it and that's why in addition to knowing who the buyers are and being able to read
and understand contracts is that's kind of where I come in I know who communicates well
I know who does the job properly and what that job actually is as opposed to what it is and can
explain that to the filmmakers so they know what they're getting into when we make the deal so we
don't get those calls two years later saying why aren't they marketing my film because they
knew what going in because I explained it to them exactly what kind of situation they got
well you use the word illusion which I thought's fitting because maybe they did
read the contract maybe you explained it to them properly but there's an illusion
mine's going to be different I realize it's going to be locked up for this but
this is different yeah and that's nothing against the filmmaker it's just we all think
our thing is 100 I've produced movies as well with other not myself alone but with other people and
and I've gotten the spell I've been in the bubble of like we made the greatest thing ever this is
going to go to whoever and so I do understand that and I do ha and I do have clients that despite I
explain it to them do come back to me later and say like why aren't they doing this like
well if you remember this is what we talked about it's not quite like that for this film
should a filmmaker kind of take the worst case scenario I know some people don't like
to operate like that but it can help if you kind of take the worst case scenario
stance you're looking at the contract and thinking well I know it says I’ll be locked
up in this territory or whatever for seven years but I'm sure it'll be fine and maybe just have
something in their mind do I really want that is this really for me I think that yes I think that
I think you can make an educated guess on what the worst case will be based on the habits of
the company you're in bed with to a certain degree so because most distribution agreements
don't have anything in them that says they have to put out the movie either right sometimes we
can build in clauses where it says if you don't release it nine months we'll get the movie back
but that's pretty easy to fulfill when you throw it on Amazon and it's released per se right so
it's hard to get a distribute like never get a distributed guarantee what will happen
I'm saying that because if you are if you do get a deal with the distributor and you look back
on the last couple of years and you see oh they've released all these films and these
this is how they've released them there's a little more security that the worst case
scenario is that they're going to release it like that right they said they're going to
put it on all these platforms they did it for all these other films so that's most likely the worst
case scenario and the worst case scenario is that they do that and no one bothers to buy the movie
that can happen for lots of films it doesn't happen at a certain level if you're getting big
theatrical deals but we're talking about straight to digital distribution that's very much but I
it's funny because I've had so many films now go to these distributors that handle all rights
and they give them the same treatment and some make a couple hundred thousand dollars and some
make two thousand dollars and you really can't see any difference between the two except that
perhaps the artwork just clicked with the public better the trailer clicked someone said something
about it kind of organically online and that took off and created a swirl it's really hard like
there's a lot of things you can tell a filmmaker to try to do to support a film publicity getting
social media company doing a theatrical there's nothing that guarantees that any of that will help
or work I almost always do kind of if someone just has has a digital distribution deal say try to do
something to help support it because at least you feel like you did something but there's no real
empirical evidence that like having a publicist for a film makes a dollar more or that running
five thousand dollars in social media ads makes ten dollars more at least from what I see in
terms of looking at films I've seen many films get no treatment make lots of money and some don’t.