Warner Independent and Picture House to Close

[filmnoir1]

Greencine's Daily film blog contains yet another unsettling story about the direction of the film business in America. It has been announced that Warner Brothers two specialty divisions Warner Independent and Picture House are to cease producing and distributing films after this Fall. One has to wonder if this move might not just be the first of the major studios giving up on the smaller intellectual films.

[Cde.]

Please be just a phase...please be just a phase...

If even the more intellectually slanted studio films can't survive, what chance does art house cinema stand?

We have no film culture...What other explanation is there for an industry where someone like Bela Tarr can't find distribution?

The 'death of art house' cinema thread predictions seem to be coming true.

I hope all of my doom and gloom will look very silly in a decade's time.

[flyonthewall2983]

This could just be that Warner is putting all of it's eggs in one basket, considering this along with the closing of New Line.

[a.khan]

This could just be that Warner is putting all of it's eggs in one basket, considering this along with the closing of New Line.

They're streamlining their operations, in the wake of the rising costs; most especially given that the US economy is in the doldrums.

[ellipsis7]

They also, I believe, folded New Line into their central operation previously...

What most recently is sending tremors through the industry is release of game Grand Theft Auto 4, outselling apparently theatrical record holder Pirates of Carribean, and clocking 1 million sales in 5 days in UK/Ireland pulling in something like $80 million in that initial period in one territory... This and the foldout of 3-D Projection systems suggests the whole nature of entertainment cinema is changing, certainly for the bad...

[Antoine Doinel]

The whole fear mongering about GTAIV is a phantom argument. The fact is, the lifecycle of something like GTAIV is very small, whereas something like Iron Man is much larger. Iron Man will kill theatrically, clean up on DVD, make big money from TV and cable rights and of course the videogame and toy spinoffs and then the sequel where everything starts over. Yes, GTAV is in the pipeline, but easily not for at least two or three years. Iron Man 2 already has a release date.

GTAIV will destroy records for one month and by August will be filling used bins in every videogame store across the nation. The video game cycle is both quick and fickle, where the film industry, for all their bungling, is good at generating revenue from a single film, for years to come.

[Cde.]

But on the other hand, something like GTAIV is easily going to sell upwards of 12 million units at $50 (or above in other territories). Yes, sales of games are very front loaded, but when you consider that the game has already made $500 million and could very well triple that then you can see that it has a good chance of toppling the amount of money a studio can wring from a blockbuster like Iron Man in a comparable time period.

It also must be said that GTAIV is much more enjoyable than a film like Pirates of the Caribbean.

[Antoine Doinel]

Yes, sales of games are very front loaded, but when you consider that the game has already made $500 million and could very well triple that then you can see that it has a good chance of toppling the amount of money a studio can wring from a blockbuster like Iron Man in a comparable time period.

That's exactly my point --- the two industries, in terms of how their sales cycles, returns and profits work, are completely different and comparing them doesn't make a whole lot of sense. GTAIV may make more than Iron Man in the short term, but over the long term Iron Man will certainly surpass the success of that title.

What's also interesting is that I haven't heard any numbers batted around about how much Rockstar spent on marketing (something that routinely comes up in discussions of the financial success or failure of Hollywood blockbusters). The marketing around GTAIV is easily the biggest, broadest and most expensive they've spent to date.

[Antoine Doinel]

Why Warner Bros. closed its specialty divisions

Cliff Notes summary: Because they have no clue how to market indie films.

[flyonthewall2983]

Because they have no clue how to market indie films.

If that's true, it's really a tragedy since they could have gone to Bob Shaye to help them out with that.