Despite all the doom and gloom in Hollywood, there’s optimism coming from a surprising place: indie films.
A strong box office this year has buoyed films like Neon’s “Longlegs” and “Cuckoo” in the horror genre, which is particularly popular with young people (and best watched in a communal setting). There’s also A24’s thriller “Civil War,” and Magnolia Pictures’ action-comedy “Thelma.”
Sure, they’re not financial blockbusters when measured against this year’s big franchise films like “Despicable Me 4,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” and “Inside Out 2.”
They also didn’t seem destined to be obvious commercial hits, and yet, they’re successes by specialized film standards. “Longlegs” barely promoted its biggest star, Nicolas Cage, and is the year’s biggest indie film, grossing over $100 million worldwide. “Thelma,” about an 83-year-old tracking down her phone scammer, became Magnolia’s highest-grossing narrative feature.
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“Coming out of COVID and post-peak streaming, it’s become evident again indie film can succeed in a big way in theaters,” said Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory, a movie industry analysis firm. “There have always been studios making these kinds of films, but distribution strategies, marketing, largely through social media, have changed the game.”
The summer box office rebound from a soft spring, with releases that targeted a wide range of moviegoers, has lifted all film boats. Anecdotally, more indie projects have been moving forward since the spring, said Seth Needle, a cofounder of Blue Harbor Entertainment, a film marketer and distributor.
“There’s been really strong box office from independents; it certainly shows the ceiling that exists for an independent film that’s well made and well marketed. In the past, you’d see all that at the expense of independents,” Needle said, referring to franchises’ success.
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Yet not all indie filmmakers are convinced the economics have fundamentally changed. Netflix and the other big streamers are still not buying the same number of films they used to, and ones made at the mid-budget level are on the wane. Film sales from the Toronto Film Festival, a closely watched barometer of the indie industry’s health, have been muted.
Buying behaviors are still making it tough for indie filmmakers, said Ken Kao, cofounder and president of Waypoint Entertainment.
“They’re still dictating movies be made for a certain price, and it’s challenging,” he said. “If it’s an auteur film, it pretty much has to be made for sub $15 [million] if you’re lucky. Almost every single movie I’m making right now, I’m figuring out how to compress the budget. We’re rerouting to Eastern Europe to make them. It’s all a function of these studios not wanting to pay for midsize independent films. I don’t feel like that was the case 10 to 15 years ago.”
Indie movies (and indie games) are a breath of fresh air in the corporate hell world of the current entertainment industry.
They’re original and creative. People are tired of the same old crap. You can’t make a bad movie better by throwing the GDP of a small country at it.
Yeah, you might make the movie more successful commercially, but that’s not the same thing. Plus, it’s a risky move.
I think people are just tired of having their nostalgia sold back to them in the form of cinematic slop meant to generate quick profits.
I’m so tired of the long Marvel franchises and reboots and remakes from the past 40 years. At least the people making indie movies are coming up with original scenarios and stories that are new and interesting. They’re a lot more fun and engaging to watch than Fast and Furious 27 and the 48th Marvel superhero franchise movie or another remake/reboot of some movie I watched back in the 90’s that was already very good and was obviously brought back to make money off of my attachment to the original characters/movies.
Think of how much fun Marvel could have been if they just paused on them for 8 years or so. Of they star wars’d it and made people begin to miss marvel movies again. Avengers won, Thanos is gone, and then nothing. Then 8 to 10 years later suddenly a sudden reveal, you see someone picking up the mantle, people would freak out. Instead we’re all bored of them.
You do know they will do both, right? They will flog the dead horse into the ground. Then stop when its not making money. Nthen reboot it once enough time has passed.
And don’t forget that they’re not even good. Like, the CGI looks bad, the writing is bad even for action movies, the acting is weird.
It’s a simulacrum of entertainment. Why would I pay 20€ for that?
And on that note, why 20€ for a movie that shows very clearly that hardly any money went into actually making a good movie?
Longlegs was a surprising movie. Not incredible, but it was a fun watch. Nick Cage is certainly having fun with some of his recent movies.
Pig was better than it had any right to be.
I haven’t watched that yet. Thanks for another add to my watchlist!
“Surprising”
The budget constraints on these Indie movies can often make the team behind them get incredibly creative in their filmmaking. While I think that has been beneficial and exciting in a lot of movies, it must be terribly restrictive to directors and the other creatives who have to jump through so many hoops to get films made. I think ultimately, it just means that costs will get cut in places that no one wants to see. That is a shame. I wish there was room for more mid budget movies to let these great directors have more room to breathe financially. That way the crew and cast are not limited and getting paid the bare minimum.
I hope the lower budgets stay a while, and would like to see more of the crews compensated with percentages. High production budgets make studios more risk averse, which directly harms the artistic value of the output imo
