Lights Out at Warner Specialty Units
I’m about as interested in the business end of Hollywood as I am the ass end of a gassy camel with a chili craving, but the other big story that had everyone feeling gloomy today besides the Glenn Kenny downsizing was Warners Bros’ surprise announcement they were shutting down their specialty divisions, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures.
What does it mean for us, the movie-goers? Will stuff like Snow Angels and La Vie En Rose still come out of Warner Bros.? If not, will the slack be picked up by the many other specialty houses? I don’t know.
According to Variety, Warner president and COO Alan Horn is taking a business as usual stance saying “We’re confident that the spirit of independent filmmaking and the opportunity to find and give a voice to new talent will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros.” Others in the business aren’t so sure. According to Sony Pictures Classics president Tom Bernard, “The specialty business is not like the studios, where if you make 11 movies and 10 don’t work the 11th will cover you. Indie labels have to have a lot more success.” He goes on to refer to the specialty niche as “a business of doubles and singles and triples and an occasional home run. It’s very difficult to turn a label into something that is going to be more than that.” The implication is that Warner Bros. just isn’t cut out for it.
Warner Bros. was the last of the big studios to form their own specialty arm and it’s a crowded field. The films themselves aren’t necessarily cheap either, particularly with ballooning marketing budgets chasing elusive Oscars. Maybe some consolidation is to be expected as in any industry when a market matures.
If nothing else, it’s a sign of trouble in the specialty market and since that’s where a majority of the interesting studio pictures come from, it can’t be good. Can it?
Aside from my own ill-formed speculation, all of the actual information in this post came from: Variety.
Filed under: News
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Mmmmm…. Not a good day for cinema.
I hope this doesn’t mean we’ve got more release strategies like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford in store for us, since if that was any indication Warner Bros. is scared to give a challenging, offbeat film a good, honest release.
PICTUREHOUSE released a lot of wonderful films. One of them, of course, being LA VIE EN ROSE. I was looking forward to a particularly glorious output from them for years to come. Considering that I know a great deal about the workings of the business, I should’ve known better.
So I’m not exactly blindsided. Deeply disheartened does sum it up better.
Things can change in the film industry in the blink of an eye - and the changes aren’t always negative. But, still, I don’t consider this a good day for anyone that enjoys quality cinema that’s off the beaten path. Less choice is never a good thing.
I think this is sucky, sucky, sucky news.
I love Picturehouse - a lot. And Warner Independant too I guess.
This is not a good day at all.
I can’t seem to name any other Picturehouse films and I’m too tired to look it up, but I usually equate it with goodness. Was Jesse James?
I thought all of these studio-backed indie projects were taking off in recent years. Maybe there have just been too many, as he mentions. For every LMS or Juno, there are 3 or 4 bad ones from the same studio. Dunno.
This is terrible news :(
Picturehouse distributed some wonderful movies which I don’t think would’ve seen the light of day otherwise.
Daniel, here are some Picturehouse films:
La Vie en Rose
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Orphanage
Starter for Ten
A Prairie Home Companion
The Notorious Bettie Page
The King of Kong
And besides, that logo thingy Picturehouse used was so pretty, it automatically added something to the film. Or at least, that is what I think.
Wow, incredibly bad news. It’s bad enough that the studios had to have “specialty divisions” to even consider making these types of movies, but if the biggest one is shutting theirs down it can’t be good news for the “specialty divisions” that still exist.
Sucks for us, folks. In the meantime, I’ll continue to support the movies I can and hope this is limited to Warners and not a disease that will spread.
Thanks, K. I missed a couple of those, but The King of Kong should have earned them about 20 more films as far as I’m concerned.
Yeah, Nick, the logo/lead-in was awesome.
This seriously blows. Though, I must say, the quality of the films they did release was so high and consistent that I think they could have found a home elsewhere. But maybe that’s the optimist in me.
Poland being Poland took the contrarian approach on the story this morning. http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2008/05/lets_not_overdo.html.
He was careful not to crap on the poor folks who are now looking for jobs, but he also tried to put some perspective on the whole thing.