--- In ldsfilm@yahoogroups.com, "utahfilm2005" <utahfilm2005@y...>
wrote:

> The way I see it if you look at the box office figures and budgets
> from both the companies: Excel has only made money for the
> investors on one show, Gods Army. The other films; Other Side of
> Heaven, Charly, P&P, Brigham City and yet to be seen but not
> looking good Work And The Glory, have either broke-even or the
> investor was left holding an empty bag, even after DVD, Video, and
> TV sales.

James, I think the people who invested in these films looked to the
filmmakers to provide a return, more than the distribution company.
When Excel takes on a film like Charly, they become almost like
another investor, contractually agreeing to spend a certain amount
of their own money for advertising and promotions, in addition to
the cost of getting the film into theaters and video rental stores.
They agree to this in exchange for a percentage of the revenues the
release generates. So the burden of providing a return on the
initial, production-related investment rests more with the producer
and director than with the distributor, I think.

> Halestorm on the other hand look to only have one film that is NOT
> going to be profitable, Baptist At Our Barbraque. All the rest of
> Halestorm films, Singles Ward, RM, The Best Two Years, and even The
> Home Teachers, appear to have shown some return to the investor.

My understanding is that The Home Teachers was a flop and that it
lost Halestorm a lot of money. I could be mistaken. The Singles
Ward and The RM were both profitable for Halestorm because they
funded, produced, and distributed them in-house (and both films did
well at the box office and afterward). I think the jury's still out
on The Best Two Years, though I've heard that video sales were brisk
this past Christmas season.

Excel has, I believe, turned a profit with every movie it has
distributed. They've been careful (shrewd?) enough to enter into
contracts which minimize their exposure while maximizing their
potential for return. So while a film like Charly might have lost
money for the original investors, it probably made money for Excel.

> Excel has turned out the better films in my humble opinion over
> all.

Yeah, but they really haven't "turned out" the films at all.
They've only agreed to get them into stores, after the films were
already made.

> But looking at it from an investor's standpoint who is the better
> company to go with? (If you `re looking at profitability for the
> investor only $$$???).

The track record of a distributor is measured in lots of ways, only
one of which is whether the initial investor got a return on his
money. The complete package offered by a potential distributor
would have to cover a lot of other items, such as timeframes, the
percentage they get to keep, their business contacts, the number of
theaters/video stores they have worked with, etc.

> I tend to think that there are people out there who would like
> another option. Am I wrong???

I'm not sure this tiny LDS film niche is screaming for a third
distribution company, though in a free market, the more = the
merrier, to be sure.

Good luck to you, if you do start one, James. I may well come
crawling to you on my knees with some independent film effort of my
own, begging for distribution, in a year or two.

- Mick