It Came From North Carolina

There is a simple truth that exists in the world of exhibition today, a truth that is often spoken but no one in Hollywood seems to be willing to react to and that is the fact that they are not making the movies people want to see. There are aberrations of success but then followed by weeks of a tepid box office. It is confusing how this market has developed. To be frank, given the state of the world, confusion seems to be the norm. There seems to be an effort to solely exploit the low hanging fruit, the tentpole movies have little intent to grow the business as a whole.

 Many make the comment that they cannot see how they can rationalize spending the money to advertise a movie.  Before the tsunami of streaming it was common practice to spend 50% plus of a movie's budget on what was called “prints and advertising”. Today with the decline of traditional media, radio, TV, and newspapers you can spend similar amounts but that expenditure would be a waste of money. Most people now are looking at social media to be the marketing savior, but without putting a very focused approach it would be for the most part very hard to get effective marketing. That is part of the rub, movies, unless they are attached to a huge brand or a bonafide tentpole are becoming increasingly hard to market.

 I saw a group of posts about the lack of attendance at an early release of the Spielberg movie “The Fabelman’s” in Los Angeles. The comments attached to this post were very dark and the posters seemed intent to be eagerly rushing to proclaim the death of movie going, a statement which I think is misshapen and frankly ill informed.

  Most bigger movies today are a result of some kind of packaging by a talent agency or a group of talent agencies. These agencies control the talented people who make movies. This includes actors, writers, directors and even the director of photography. The agencies take 10% of the talent fees plus then take up to 20% of the movie’s budget as a packaging fee. Due to this model of control the agencies have put in place, the intent is to pull off as much money from the top as they can. This provides impetus to make large movies with larger fees attached.

 They also have begun to work with the streamers to package as many bingeable series as they can. Agencies are made up of smart people who’s sole goal is to create an upfront expense for themselves. The package seems to be the product and not the movie, in fact the movie and its storytelling I believe is being diluted by this industry practice.

 From financing, to production, to distribution and exhibition it is becoming evident that like a lot of things in this world of ours, this industry has become way too big and way too centralized.  You cannot effectively market and you have a tendency if you’re this big to make global decisions that will leave a large segment of your market totally underserved.

 If the intent is to centralize decision making, to use one brush to paint both a National and global marketing approach you will dilute your intent and put forward a culture and as well a perception of mediocrity.

 It is my firm belief that if you can, go small. As a provider of entertainment products, large and nationwide does not work. I spoke to a Pennsylvania Drive-in owner, a sharp and passionate fellow in my opinion who told me that “these Marvel movies do not do well for us”. He felt that a large part of his potential market was being ignored. I think he is right and within the problems that exhibition is facing, the lack of product diversity, a continued reliance on Hollywood output and a collapse of the concept of regional markets is at the core of our problems. We have to redefine both markets and redefine success.

 I discovered Earl Owensby in my early filmmaking days. I was intrigued by his model of self-reliance and self-determination. A filmmaker who decided he could build something appealing to something called the Southern Drive-in circuit.

 In 1973 a pneumatic tool salesman from Shelby North Carolina, Early Owensby decided to make movies. In November of that year, producer/actor Earl Owensby began production on his first feature film, action movie Frank Challenge: Manhunter. The movie starred Owensby as Frank Challenge, a political candidate who takes the law into his own hands after the savage murder of his family. Distributed in 1974 by Cinemation Industries to 134 markets, Challenge proved to be very profitable.  The movie was directed by Martin Beck

''I`m an oddity in this business, I realize that,'' said Owensby. ''But I always took this as a serious business. We`ve come a long way in the past 12 years, without the aid of Hollywood. I`ve always said, you can do anything here that you can do in Hollywood.'' Earl Owensby was a pioneer in independent filmmaking, and he did so without the support of the Hollywood establishment, never using their infrastructure. He went and built a movie studio in rural North Carolina between Shelby and Boiling Springs, North Carolina. He resurrected 3D films by launching a series of six 3D movies, Rottweiler: Dogs of Hell,Tales of the third dimension, Chain Gang , Hit The Road Running, Hyperspace aka Gremloids, and Hot Heir aka Great Balloon Chase. He ventured into the global film market before other independents saw this as a viable market and he often starred in his own movies, (he even played an Elvis like character). When the Southern drive-in circuit collapsed he bought a nuclear plant and turned it into the largest underwater movie studio.

 In an interview on 60 Minutes, Owensby explained that E.O. Studios’ success was due to never spending more than a million dollars (to be frank in reality this amount was so much lower)  to make a movie and never signing a distribution deal that would net them less than eight million (again not really accurate). Earl  continued to crank out such profitable non Hollywood movies  as A Day of Judgement (1981),  Rottweiler: Dogs of Hell  (1982), Hit the Road Running (1983), Hot Heir (1984), Tales of the Third Dimension (1984), Chain Gang (1984), The Last Game (1984), Hyperspace (also known as Gremloids) (1985), The Rutherford County Line (1986), and Order of the Black Eagle (1987).

 This filmmaker decided on his market focus, regional exhibition, and built stories and campaigns which would appeal to that market. Constructed budgets that would provide him a return on his investment and went to town.

 There are opportunities for a repeating of this story, based primarily on recognizing the potential of rural based theaters and drive-ins, assessing the market, and then producing products to meet the needs of that market. Ownesby shot in 35mm, far more expensive of today's digital world. Diversify, regionalize, and make smaller.