“Holy Rollers”: a “Micro” Success Story
Posted by Jim on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 in Author • Gary Rubin - President, First Independent Pictures • Film Blogs • Film Business Planning • Film Revenue & ROI • (1) Comments • Permalink •
One of the sixteen narrative films in competition at this year's Sundance film festival was a film called "Holy Rollers". Starring Jesse Eisenberg of "Zombieland" and "Squid and the Whale" fame as well as the groom from last year's smash comedy "The Hangover" Justin Bartha, the film was made for just over $1 mil and nabbed one of the coveted slots at the premiere American film festival. In terms of subject matter, good news: a crime drama about running drugs out of Amsterdam, always a popular genre. Not so easy news: the running was being done by a group of Hasidic Jews. Therein lay the marketing challenge.
In acquiring a film, acquisitions and distribution execs must run models together to see if the numbers crunch on an acquisition price and a theatrical p and a level. DVD becomes a big part of this if you want to play at a certain level (foreign films can sometimes be an exception). Given the difficult current dvd market (dvd should make up more than half of a film's revenue in most cases if things are right- and things haven't been that right lately), this one wasn't an easy acquisition for anyone for a simple reason: in dvd, you have one day, the street date, to nab the whole country's attention. That's right- stats show that most of the business is done in the first week. So intelligent films often get "dumbed down" in the dvd marketing to reach the broadest group of consumers. With the country 5% Jewish, and most of those not Hasidic, you can see the challenge in theatrical, let alone dvd. Yes, the drug scandal's a hook, but nevertheless, the challenge exists.
At the same time, religious outreach can sometimes be an effective tool in marketing a film. My company First Independent, considered a micro distributor that sometimes handles some bigger product relative to our size, had had some luck a couple of years ago with a film called "Sixty Six". "Sixty Six" was produced by Working Title's (one of the most prolific producer's in the world) low budget arm, WT2. While owned by Universal, the film was just too small for Focus to release and was not going to receive a US release at all until the film's director, Paul Weiland implored his agents at ICM to find someone to distribute on an albeit smaller level. Enter FIP. "Sixty Six", for 1966, is the true story of a Jewish boy (Weiland) who is banking on his popularity level being improved upon by having a grand Bar Mitzvah, only to have the big day fall on the same day as the Soccer World Cup finals - England vs. Germany- true story and repeating this year's matchup except two differences- different outcome and no vuvuzelas. The point is- it's in great part a Jewish film. Like "Holy Rollers".
When it came time to decide what we wanted to acquire from this year's group of pictures, our experience with "Sixty Six" made us feel we wanted and could handle "Holy Rollers", something some distributors were not as confident about. And indeed it was that very fact, experience with Jewish marketing that helped get us the film. Now that we had it, we didn't know what level of micro box office the film was capable of. Could it break $100k at the box office? $200k? More?
We opened the film on May 21 in NY and LA. The film's lead producer, Danny Abeckaser, is an incredibly connected marketer, club owner and now producer (he also plays the third lead in the film as well). To get a smaller film to work today, you need something extra, and Danny was our secret weapon. We are now starting to near the end of our theatrical run, and it looks like the $300k number could be broken- not exactly "Greek Wedding", but relative to this scale of distribution- not chopped liver (excuse the bad Jewish reference).
The full story won't be told until we are done distributing the ancillaries, but niche marketing, social media and a secret weapon of a producer have led "Holy Rollers" to at the very least "micro" success.
Gary Rubin, President - First Independent Pictures , has over twenty years of experience in the motion picture and television businesses, having held an array of positions that cross the entire gamut of distribution, acquisitions, production and management. Prior to forming First Independent Pictures, Rubin served as Executive Vice President, Sales and Acquisitions, for Artisan Entertainment (since merged with Lion's Gate). Prior to that, Rubin was employed by October Films, (since merged with Focus Features), where he held the dual position of VP, Ancillary Distribution and Library Acquisitions, as well as Sr. VP, Millenium Films. Residing in Los Angeles/Santa Monica, Rubin teaches a course on the independent film business at UCLA. He graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Michigan.
