Film Distribution

The first step after producing a film is two get it into cinemas. The people behind this is either an individual film distributor or a film distributing company. They are responsible for releasing films into the cinema, DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc. For the distributors to gain a profit they must secure a written contract stating a percentage of the gross ticket sales that they will recieve. They also have to make sure that there are enough prints of the film at each cinema contracted on the contract-based opening day, check to see that the exhibitors are showing the film and the original prints return back to the distributors. Something else they are responsible fir is ensuring that there is a sufficient  full line of film advertising material so the film can attract the largest amount of audience possible. If the advertisements are not created by the production company then this will be their job.

"In Manhattan, a mother of two preparing for her daughter's sixth birthday party has no idea of the challenges she's about to face in order to pull off the event." is the plot summary for a film that was released in the UK starring Uma Thurman and was called Motherhood. The total UK Theatrical Box Office for ‘Motherhood’ in the opening weekend was $131, which is £86. This is less than ten people in the whole of the UK who actually bought tickets. However, the tax man took 17.5% of that £86 (VAT), the theatre will take 75% of the remaining, as well as the distributor having to recoup many £thousands first, and take their fee for releasing it. A film distributor has explained that: the film isn't very good but it's not terrible, the film was released in one cinema in London and very little PR was done, the limited release could be a tactic to gain exposure and reviews for DVD, VOD and TV sales, the distributor may have been contractually bound to release the film in theatres when in fact it should never have appeared in theatres (but the film maker demanded it) so they did the minimum needed to fulfil their end of the deal, The DVD was released on the same day as the theatrical release.

Metrodome released the film and their very own James Brown gave a presentation at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, this is what was reported on the Last Night With Riviera Blog...
Metrodome's James Brown gave a rambling presentation on the state of UK distribution. He'd just learned that Metrodome's chair had let go of large portion of the staff and was pulling the company out of theatrical (12 films a year) to concentrate solely on DVD (60 films a year), which informed much of his talk. In an hour of constant, roundabout banter, he made only two real points (over and over again):

• The GFC (Global Financial Crisis) has killed UK distribution, which is on life support. Retailers are going out of business. Theatrical is dying. There is no theatrical audience over the age of 35 in the UK. We don't know how lucky we have it here etc.
• In the UK, the audiences for theatrical and video are distinct. This means that, for example, you can make UKP 2.4 million on Broken Embraces at the box-office, but only ship 1,000 DVD's. Or UKP 800,000 on Away We Go and only ship 800 copies of the DVD in the 1st month. Conversely, it means there are massive DVD audiences for films which would not warrant a theatrical release, such as Metrodome's moneymaker for 2009, Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. (Hey James, have you seen Chihuanhas?)
• His main message: "I'm here to give you permission to make commercial crap to fund your passion project". His next project: derivative WWII action Age of Heroes.