For the last few months I have been endeavoring to get a film made that has a current budget of $15 Million. One of my big problems is that this is not enough money, people are actually afraid to invest in the project because the current budget is too low.
When me and my team sat down and looked at it we thought that it should be around $40-$45 million dollars. The producer/writer who ones the rights to the project whom we would be partnering with has had a very hard time with this. He keeps saying to me "I just don't think it will cost this much..." and then we go down a list of ways that we can save money above the line . Which is fine, I don't have a problem with saving money on a project.
The issue is that in him having an issue with it he is making it harder for me to do my job and negotiate with the people who actually will be signing initial checks.
Because the budget is presenting differently then what I am selling them on because the will not agree to a smaller budget.
This is a hard thing for both the Producer/Writer whom I am working with to grasp because, "I am so used to doing independents that I...". Yes, this is an independent. So yes, he is still working on an independent film. It's just not an art house indie that is going to festivals. This is an indie with a budget and a real plan for distribution.
So through much negotiation I got the Producer to agree that the budget can be modified down much easier than up and that having "too much" money is not a bad thing. It seems that this would be intuitive but he is coming from the point of view that if the numbers are too big it will scare people away. I can understand this but I wholeheartedly disagree. The numbers signify intent. If some investor can't afford the budget then we really should not be talking to them anyway. In my mind either you believe in the project or you don't.
Some indie films are art-house and tailor made for the Lifetime network. Some are made for everybody and belong in 3,000+ theaters. This is the latter, it's one of the human interest character stories that people will love that is a sports movie. It has tons of Oscar potential and is in the boxing genera.
Having gotten through all of that, now we are just negotiating about getting the budget reworked to reflect the numbers we want and we get hit with something else.
The Producer/writer calls me and tells me that he has an offer on the table from a hedge-fund.
They want to give him $6 Million for 50% of the points and then he has to go get another 6 for a locked in budget of $12 mill.
What does all this mean:
That basically for half of the rights on the gross profits from the film(half of the ticket sales, dvd, ect) they will give the Producer/Writer half the budget. Now he still has to come up with the other six million dollars to meet the budget. BUT! He can't get more that six million dollars. Which is really really bizarre to me. It sounds like they are going to screw him out of 50% of the rights to this thing. So now I have told him to take the deal because we can't beat the time frame of comming up with 6 million in less than two weeks. Talking to one of my partners in my company, it was addressed that someone needs to warn the Producer/Writer of this thing that he is getting screwed and how.
That seems to now be my job, but I don't completely feel that he should not take the deal. This producer/writer has been trying to make this movie for 12 years, and has sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into this project. He need's to count his losses at this point.
But if he takes that deal we are out of it. There was a possibility of us being the second drop and now that is not the case. My two other partners want no part of a second drop on this project if the 6m for 50% deal is signed. I agree, it seems like a really bad deal. Hope to talk to everybody tomorrow and see if this situation can be salvaged.
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