Screenwriter-director John August provides one of the best screenwriting resources on the Web at his blog johnaugust.com. In this post, he provides a “post-mortem” on The Nines (2007), a movie he wrote and directed. The Nines, which debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, did not do well at the box office as this overview at boxofficemojo.com demonstrates. August provides his personal analysis of the distribution and marketing process, framing it in the context of the now famous Mark Gill speech at the LA Film Festival.
In his post-mortem, August recounts the 20 movies that received “significant buzz” at the 2007 Sundance festival and here they are:
- The Signal
- Chapter 27
- The Good Night
- Joshua
- Teeth
- The Ten
- Waitress
- Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna)
- How She Move
- Son of Rambow
- Once
- Nanking
- The King of Kong
- Grace is Gone
- Dedication
- Clubland (aka Introducing the Dwights)
- My Kid Could Paint That
- King of California
- In the Shadow of the Moon
- Hounddog
All of them, except Hounddog, sold. How did they fare in the marketplace?
Waitress sold quickly, was released quickly, and made the most by far at the box office ($19M). Second place was Under the Same Moon ($12.5M), followed by Once ($9M) and How She Move ($7M). Son of Rambow will likely end up in fifth. It’s currently in release, and made $8M overseas.
In terms of box office, none of these are hits in the way Little Miss Sunshine was. But you’d be happy being any of them, because beyond those five, the other movies on the list fell off a cliff. None of them made a million. In fact, most didn’t make it over $100,000. The Nines didn’t, despite opening well.
But at least we opened. At least we sold. For our year, 3,287 feature films were submitted to Sundance, of which 122 played. Roughly 20 played in theaters.
Distressing, right? But August comes to some other conclusions about the timing of DVD release, foreign rights, and ends with this sentiment about making indie films:
My advice? You should make an indie film to make a film. Period. Artistic and commercial success don’t correlate well, and at the moment, only the former is remotely within your control.
Read the whole blog post. As with every John August entry, it’s insightful, personal, and great food for thought.
