Hollywood Beltway

Twilight brought in $70 million in box-office receipts in its debut weekend. The film's performance put independent Summit Entertainment into the world of franchise tent pole offerings.

Summit was re-launched in April 2007 by Friedman, the former vice chairman of Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group, along with Wachsberger, adding a major development, acquisitions and marketing branch with $1.0 billion in financing through a deal with Merrill Lynch and other investors. This was pretty common during the late days of the last economic boom; private equity was funding Hollywood in a big way.

excerpted from Forbes

Twilight brought in $70 million in box-office receipts in its debut weekend. The film’s performance put independent Summit Entertainment into the world of franchise tent pole offerings.

Summit was re-launched in April 2007 by Friedman, the former vice chairman of Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group, along with Wachsberger, adding a major development, acquisitions and marketing branch with $1.0 billion in financing through a deal with Merrill Lynch and other investors. This was pretty common during the late days of the last economic boom; private equity was funding Hollywood in a big way.

excerpted from Forbes

A joint venture with China could yield five movies for a $250 million dollar total.

Xinhua Media Entertainment, a Sino-U.S. co-production shingle set up in Los Angeles and Beijing, Lee on Tuesday announced a slate of five films to be made for $25 million-$50 million each.

Fredy Bush, CEO of XME parent Xinhua Finance Media — a Beijing-based, Nasdaq-listed company with interests in broadcast, print and advertising — said the slate “differentiates us from our competitors as each film has the high potential to become a global blockbuster.”

excerpt, for more: click

If there is a demand for epic films, the difficulty in meeting that demand is financing. As Susan King’s interview with Baz Luhrmann illistrates,

“Australia” deliberately hearkens back to the kind of filmmakers and films (think David Lean and “Lawrence of Arabia” or John Ford and “The Searchers”) that gave cinema its bigger-than-life scale. The kind of epics that few directors or studios even try for anymore.

Luhrmann argues that fear has been the genre’s worst enemy.

“Fear of the money, fear of the scale,” Luhrmann said recently. “It’s not easy to sell. It’s easy to market a film about one genre. But it’s not easy to market in this modern age — a film that will make you laugh, make you cry, make you swoon. This belonged to a time where cinema was grand and very brave and very, very absolute.”

Excerpt from Los Angeles Times

A film business plan is similar to any well conceived business plan, but it must focus on the unique aspects of the entertainment market. It must include the project’s niche, distribution and promotion and advertising strategies.

Your audience is your potential investors. The effective plan is geared toward the funding source such as, private equity and/or debt investors, governmental film commissions, international joint ventures, foriegn distribution pre-sales, and/or conventional studio or production company arrangements.

HBO has made a deal with Edward Norton's production company, Class 5 Films, for a currently untitled documentary that chronicles the rise of Barack Obama, from junior senator to president-elect of the United States.

The cable network plans to premiere the film in 2009.

Norton, the actor who starred in "The Incredible Hulk" action flick, claims to have some extraordinary footage chronicling the journey of the first African-American to be elected president.

According to Norton, he was granted "unprecedented access to Obama, his senior campaign staff, family, friends, and volunteers."

Director Amy Rice initiated the concept in 2006, recalling Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Norton had the foresight to pitch Obama on the idea months before the president-elect's decision to run for the Democrat nomination. Norton's crew was allowed to hang out with the Illinois senator, starting with his trip to Africa in the summer of 2006.

The resulting raw footage shows the inner workings of a historical presidential campaign and will reportedly continue filming the inauguration and early presidency.

While announcing the project, Norton highlighted the historical aspect of Obama's election, saying that it gave the film "a perfect framework to explore the pulse of the country at this vital moment in our history."

The movie maker believes that the "film will capture a tipping point in American history when a new generation of leadership emerged and old prejudices were finally vaulted over."

Norton characterized HBO as "one of the notable champions of the documentary film."

James Hirsen, J.D., M.A. in Media Psychology, is a media analyst, teacher of mass media and entertainment law at Biola University and professor at Trinity Law School.