Peter Bart: Opportunity & Disaster Loom Side By Side For Indie Film Launches, Especially In Theaters

Peter Bart
·4 min read

“Unless you happen to be Tom Cruise, launching a new movie today is a study in frustration. Or self-destruction.”

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So states one veteran indie film distributor commenting on the current film market (see below), whose testimony is supported by the filmmakers and wannabes gathered this week at the Tribeca Festival.

Tribeca marks the start of festival season in the U.S., where opportunity and disaster loom side by side. Indie filmmakers view Tribeca as a delicious launching pad, but this year its agenda is also crammed with streamers, music, audio awards, assorted activist presentations and even celebrity sightings: Taylor Swift will introduce her new short and Wednesday night saw Jennifer Lopez tout her new documentary Halftime, which was the festival’s opening film but, even with Lopez’s promotional clout, will not have a theatrical release. It debuts on Netflix next Tuesday.

There will also be premieres of indie dramas and rom-coms, but they’ll take some work to find. Tribeca dropped the word “film” from its title, so its busy program reflects the content maze: It’ll be tougher than ever to discover the next Last Picture Show or Sex, Lies and Videotape, those revered “sleepers” from generations past. But the high-energy fest has added online premieres, splitting receipts with creators overseas well as in the U.S.

Even in banner times, Hollywood has found movie launches to be expensively self-defeating. Twenty years ago two rival Wyatt Earp movies opened back to back; so did a couple of $100 million disaster films (Armageddon and Deep Impact) with alarmingly similar plots.

While the studios summon up marketing muscle to support their tentpoles, indie films remain dependent on the kindness of critics and festivals. “Every filmmaker needs to find a rabbi among the critics,” Robert Altman once declared. He shrewdly pursued Pauline Kael with private screenings and pricey dinners. Some directors even paid critics to do rewrites, managing to elicit favorable reviews along the way.

Release schedules this year are notably thin and focused on those tentpoles with advance branding – Jurassic World Dominion from Universal and Thor: Love and Thunder from Marvel. Warner Bros’ Elvis directed by Baz Luhrman is reminiscent of an old Hollywood extravaganza and hence perhaps the riskiest.

Overall, the majors figure that yearly receipts will reflect a 70% increase over last year, but still down 34% from pre-pandemic levels. But indie films are notably scarce on release slates, reflecting not only a shortage of theaters but also an absence of reviews. The mainstream media have become increasingly stingy with review space with the exception of the New York Times, which each Friday reviews as many as 20 films.

Its generosity represents a mixed blessing since Times reviewers habitually disdain “raves” for new films, instead mastering a lexicon of subtle dismissiveness: ”Every plot development feels pre-ordained” (Fire Island); ”The film’s referential pleasures feel insubstantial by comparison to more meaningful works” (18+).

If the Times’ second-tier critics are unhelpful in selling tickets, its major reviewers also remind readers of their cultural preferences. A.O. Scott last week delivered a generous critique on Benediction, a biopic about a British poet named Siegfried Sassoon. It was directed by Terence Davies, also British, who earlier gave us A Quiet Passion, dealing with yet another poet, Emily Dickinson. Her work, Scott assures us, “was as attentive to its subject’s inner weather as to the details of her time and place.”

Scott last Sunday even semi-apologized for his “lukewarm” review some months ago of low-budget Dog, starring Channing Tatum (who also directed). That movie, he now realizes was “a politically charged throwback movie that offers a smooth ride over scorched earth.”

In order to merit reviews in the Times or other newspapers in principal cities, film distributors must secure a theatrical release, even a brief one. This exercise could cost as much as $150,000 even for a modest 20-theater release.

“There has never been a dicier time to launch a film,” observes Strath Hamilton, who co-runs Tri-Coast Film Distribution, which last year handled the overseas distribution of The Novice, a Tribeca winner. “You need a good movie and a good cast,” he attests. Hamilton’s odds were enhanced this year because one of his releases, Wolf Hound, is an indie aerial action film. “It helps to share a genre with Tom Cruise,” he notes (Grindstone/Lionsgate distributes that film in the U.S.).

Given all the obstacles, will indie films continue to see the light of day? “Of course they will,” Hamilton insists. “Making movies is an addiction. So, hopefully, is seeing them.”

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