1. What Kind of Media Institution Might
Distribute your Media Product and Why?
Jack Simmons

2. What are Distribution
Companies?
Distribution Companies are a very important part of
the film industry and are worth a lot of money. Often
you see big Hollywood companies setting up/ buying
distribution companies; this is called vertical
integration and allows them to retain profit within the
company. The job of a distribution company is mainly
to do with P&A (printing and advertising) but also to
physically distribute the movies to theatres. Its easier
to distribute digitally as there is no cost involved
whereas it will cost £1000 to distribute a film reel to a
theatre with analogue technology.

3. P&A...
•
P&A is a very important process, it really is the make or break of a films
success. For example John Carter flopped at the box office. Experts put
it down to a substandard advertising campaign where they kept
changing the name.
Good examples of traditional P&A are posters, billboards and
newspaper adverts
•
Good examples of viral marketing are using social networks such as
facebook, google + and twitter to spread awareness. It is also much
cheaper than traditional methods. Recently Warner Bros. started a
successful viral marketing campaign for ‘The Dark Knight’. They
created a website made up of tiles, every time someone shared the
website a tile would flip over to reveal part of a picture. This built up
anticipation for the films release.

4. Moving on…
Lets take a look at a few
different distribution companies
to see which one would be
most suitable for my movie.

5. Warner Bros. [GB]
Warner Bros. [GB] is a subsidiary company of Warner
Bros. Entertainments and is their main UK distribution
company. It has been responsible for advertising and
distributing some of the most prolific WB movies of
the past decade such as the ones on the next few
slides.
Click Here to View Warner Bros. [GB] Distributed Movies
Click Here to See an Overview of The Warner Bros. Company

6. Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows: Part
2
This movie was released in July
2011. It had an estimated budget of
$125 million and made just under
$170 million on its opening weekend
in the USA alone. It was released in
2D theatres as well as 3D and imax
theatres. This was used to maximise
profit and draw in a wider audience.
As of December 2011 the film had
grossed a total of $1,328,111,219
worldwide. It was produced by
Warner Bros. Pictures using their
own Warner Bros. [GB] distribution
company as described before to
keep the profits within the company.

7. The Dark Knight
This movie was released in July
2008. It had an estimated budget of
$185 million and made just under
$160 million on its opening weekend
showing on over 4000 screens in the
USA alone. In December 2010 the
film had grossed a total of
$1,001,921,825 worldwide. Again it
was produced by Warner Bros.
Pictures using their own Warner
Bros. [GB] distribution company. The
Dark Knight attracted its audience
with some big names such as
Christian Bale, Michael Caine and
Heath Ledger.

8. Is it Suitable for my movie?
No, Warner Bros. [GB] is not suitable
to distribute my movie because it is
used to distribute big budget movies
like the examples shown in the previous
slides. My film would simply not be
considered by the company as they
always look to distribute movies which have some
star power behind them along with a big budget.

9. Lionsgate Entertainment
Lionsgate entertainment was founded in Canada in
1997 as Lionsgate Films by Frank Giustra. Since then
it has grown into a big name in the film industry and
has acquired several other companies in the process.
One of these companies is Momentum Pictures in the
year 2000; this is now run by Alliance Films
(Lionsgate’s main distributor in Canada). Lionsgate
seems to have a good reputation for distributing
horror movies.
Click Here to See Lionsgate Entertanments Company Overview

10. Momentum Pictures (UK)
Owned by Lions Gate Entertainment and run by
Alliance films; momentum pictures is one of two
distributors for Lionsgate Entertainment in the UK
along with Lions gate UK. Momentum has been used
for distributing not only big budget hollywood movies
but also lower budget movies.
Click Here to See a List of Movies that Momentum Pictures has Distributed

11. Saw II
This movie was released in October
2005 and distributed by lionsgate films. I
think the fact that they released it in
October shows the quality of the film
company as they timed the released to
coincide with halloween. It had a budget
of just $4 million which shows how good
lionsgate are with smaller movies. As
expected it did really well on its opening
weekend making about $32 million; this
was a massive amount of money, 8
times the budget of the movie. Since
then it has made $147,739,965. Its easy
to see why Lionsgate chose to stick with
the Saw franchise making a total of 7
movies all together ending with Saw 3D.

12. Frozen
Frozen was released in February
2012 and was distributed by
momentum pictures. In its opening
weekend it made a small amount
of money; only $130,000.
Compare this to other movies and
this doesn’t even make a dent in
some of their opening weekend
totals. To date the movie has only
grossed $250,000. This shows that
momentum pictures are not only
interested in big budget
productions but also give very low
budget movies a chance to make
some money.

13. Are they Suitable for my
movie?
Lionsgate entertainment is not a
suitable company to distribute my
movie because they focus too much
on medium to big budget movies
whereas I need a company that can
focus mostly on independent films.
However Momentum Pictures did show promise with
Frozen; this is a very low budget movie and it seems
that most Lionsgate companies like to distribute the
horror genre. Another recent example is Insidious,
this was distributed by Alliance.

14. Fox Searchlight
Fox Searchlight is a subsiduary company to 20th
Century Fox and was founded in California in 1994.
Since being founded Fox Searchlight Pictures has
been responible for many movies with fairly low
budgets as it specialises in British and independent
films. Recently it distributed the movie ‘Another Earth’
which only had a small budget of $200,000 .
Here is a Link to Fox Searchlight’s Website
Click to See all of the Movies Searchlight has Distributed

15. Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire was
released in January 2009. It
was an independent movie
with a budget of $15 million
and on its opening weekend it
was shown at only 10 screens
making $360,000. Since then
it has grown rapidly in
popularity and has grossed a
total profit of just over $140
million making it one of
searchlights most successful
movies.

16. 127 Hours
This movie was released in January
2011 and was given an approximate
budget of $18 million to make the
film. On the opening weekend the
movie only showed on 4 screens but
amazingly made just over $260,000
from that. Since then it has made a
total of about $57 million. I think that
Searchlight might have been
disappointed in this movie; especially
as it was advertised ‘from the director
of Slumdog Millionaire’. It didnt make
as much money but it does show
Fox’s commitment to supporting
smaller movies.

17. Is it Suitable for my movie?
Fox Searchlight is a very good
candidate to distribute my film
especially as it specialises in
distributing small budget
independent British films with great
success. The examples I have given
prove their commitment and accomplishment with
independent movies.

18. Entertainment Film Distributors
Entertainment is a true independent film distribution
company with some real history. It was founded in
London in 1978 by Nigel Green and has been
involved with distributing some of the countries ‘most
british’ movies such as the recent Inbetweeners
Movie.
Take a look at their website
Here’s a List of their Movies

19. The Artist
The artist is a French/Belgian
movie. It showed at 24 screens on
its opening weekend in belgium
but only made €60,000 despite its
$15 million budget. Since then the
world caught a glimpse of the
movie making it popular
worldwide, hence it had now
grossed a total of $43 million. I
think this was so successful
because it was a silent movie. It
was ‘artistic’ and made in such a
way that any nation could watch it
with ease.

20. The Final Destination
Entertainment Film Distributors
distributed ‘The Final Destination’
as well as the whole ‘Final
Destination’ Franchise. Other
horror movies distributed by
Entertainment include The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween
II, Freddy vs. Jason and many
more. The Final Destination was
released in August 2009 with a
budget of $43 million. It inly made
$27 million on its opening
weekend but as of now it has
grossed a total of $66 million.

21. Is it Suitable for my movie?
Simply, Yes. Entertainment Film
Distributors is a perfect
company to distribute my movie,
they already have an extensive
repertoire of horror movies that
they have distributed with great
success and they are based in
the UK. As it says on their
website they are the Uk’s
leading independent film
distributor.

22. Conclusion
I think that the obvious company to distribute my
movie would be Entertainment Film Distributors this is
because they are a UK based company, they
specialise in independent films and they have a good
reputation for distributing horror movies. I think they
would be perfect for my movie and help it go a long
way.