The Strategic Producer

Chapter 10 The Marketplaces

History, Deal Structures, Distribution, Exhibition, and Film Festivals

 

 

 

 

 

 

For most of my lifetime a theatrical release has been simply, even in its most successful iterations, a loss-leader, a form of advertising that gave legitimacy to the product’s “identity” as “cinema” in its actual economic life downstream on smaller screens.—James Schamus

Drive through any small town in the U.S. that still has a one-screen movie theater on Main Street and imagine a time when it was the only way audiences could see a movie. Across America, in cities large and small, cinemas drew weekly audiences numbering in the millions. Week after week, for decades, audiences for theatrically released motion pictures were larger ...