Questions on your Case Study of ‘The English Patient’

What issues of media ownership in the contemporary film industry are raised by the acquisition of Miramax by the Disney Corporation in 1993?

To what extent was cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and
marketing significant in the commercial and critical success of ‘The English Patient’?

How did the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange help ‘The English Patient’ become globally successful?

What was the significance of the fact that ‘The English Patient’ was released before the general proliferation of digital hardware and content for institutions and audiences?

What was the importance of technological convergence for Miramax and the audience of ‘The English Patient’?

What issues are raised by the way in which British audiences were targeted by Miramax?

In what ways has your own experiences of watching films help illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour in the light of studying ‘The English Patient’?

Questions on Film Distribution – Part 1

When does the marketing of a film begin? What date did ‘The Duchess’ open at cinemas in the UK? When do you think the first trailers hit cinemas?

When did the film open in selected theatres in the US? Why the difference? Why do you think it opened in the UK first?

The distributor

Look at the bottom of page 1. Put the 8 things a film distributor does into order of importance – try and explain why you’ve made the selection.

Box office

The 1996 film ‘The English Patient’ was released in the US on 6th November 1996 and opened on only 10 screens – taking $278,439 on the first weekend. Yet by the time the film opened in the UK on the 14th March 1997 it had taken $60,317,565 at the US box office. What might explain this? To give you a modern comparison ‘The Duchess’ opened on 7 screens taking $190,426 on its opening weekend.

Rentals

What are ‘rentals’?

Audience Research

What is the main source of audience research by distributors? Why do you think they chiefly use this?

Cast and crew

A ‘Bankable star’ is one of the ‘3 minimum ingredients to any film package’, the other two being a successful director and a script or a strong story IDEA. According to the magazine ‘Hollywood Reporter’ the top 10 bankable stars of 2006 were:

Tom Hanks
Tom Cruise
Jim Carrey
George Clooney
Russell Crowe
Johnny Depp
Nicole Kidman
Jude Law
Brad Pitt
Julia Roberts

Choose one of these stars and go to the Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/
And look up their last 5 films – how much have the earned at the box office? Then look up their biography – you should be able to find out their salary for their films. Do you think they’re ‘worth’ so much per film?

Certificates

Read the additional ‘updated’ sheet about film classification and answer the questions under Activity 3.3.

Now complete the two Tasks at the top of page 5 of the main pack.

Film Prints

‘The Duchess’ opened on 426 Screens across the UK – how much would it cost just to supply the prints?

Unique Selling Point

Complete the Task on page 7 using appendix 1. What do you think the USP of ‘The Duchess’ is?

P & A

The ‘average’ Hollywood big budget film spends $34.4 million on P&A, while some films have spent more than $100 million. What percentage of the estimated Box Office income is the P&A budget?
What do you think the P&A budget of ‘The Duchess’ was in £s?
Look at page 8. Using Appendix 2 complete the Task.

Film sales

How many months in advance do films have to booked into cinemas?

Who's the Most Bankable Star in Hollywood?

Harrison Ford may have racked up a $150 million gross over Memorial Day weekend, but he's not the biggest star in Hollywood according to this new ranking system.

By Matthew Shepatin 27/05/08

To qualify for the chart, an actor or actress must have appeared in more than ten movies with a wide release, appearing in more than 1,000 theaters, in the United States. The scoring works as follows:

+3 points for each leading role in a wide release that is either a stand-alone movie or the first movie in a franchise, and that earns over $100 million at the box office.

+2 points for each leading role in a wide release that is the second, third, fourth, etc., movie in a franchise, and which earns over $100 million at the box office.

+1 point for each supporting role in a wide release (of any sort) that earns more than $100 million at the box office.

-1 point for each leading or supporting role in a wide release that earns less than $100 million at the box office.

So what do we find when we crunch the numbers? The all-time top star is Tom Cruise with a total score of 27. “What this says is that Tom Cruise has consistently delivered hits while appearing in a wide variety of movies,” said Nash. “Love him or hate him, he has a strong claim to being the most bankable star over the past twenty years.” While there’s no way to know if he will continue to be the most bankable star for the next thirty, what’s clear is that contrary to all the negative press (e.g., couch-jumping, Scientology...) Cruise is still the safest bet in Hollywood…