New Boutique Distributors Step Up to Meet the Needs of the Independent Film Market

Jack Huston is no stranger to the movie business. So when the longtime actor and grandson of filmmaker John Huston launched his directorial debut — the boxing drama “Day of the Fight” — to good reviews at last year’s Venice Film Festival, he knew it would still be tough to find distribution in today’s theatrical marketplace. But he had no idea how tough a fight it would be.

“We took on a sort of impossible feat by making a black-and-white period movie starring Michael Pitt,” Huston says of his film, which boasts supporting turns from Joe Pesci, Ron Perlman and Steve Buscemi. ”People walk out of this film so joyous, even [reps from] the biggest distributors. But some of these companies aren’t contractually allowed to take on black-and-white movies, which to me is the death of art. I put everything into this movie, so when it came to distribution, I said, ‘The way this film gets lost is if I make some bullshit deal for a one-theater and same-day PVOD release. That’s how this film disappears.’”

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So Huston, who’d been in conversations with A24, Netflix and Focus Features, decided to partner on a Nov. 15 platform release and awards season push with the recently launched Falling Forward Films. They’re one of several new distribs, such as Briarcliff Entertainment, aiming to fill in the gap left by specialty distribs cutting back their slates. And in another silver lining, this has allowed new and established companies like Mubi, Vertical, Ketchup and the Avenue to step up their game with wider openings, or more prestigious projects, than what they were once able to release.

The team behind writer/director/producer Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” worked with longtime arthouse label Mubi to make her satirical body horror thriller the company’s first wide release. It earned $15.4 million domestically — less than its reported $17.5 million budget, but a solid chunk of its $43.2 million worldwide gross — and a good award season boost for its Gotham Awards nominee Demi Moore and other talent.

Why take a risk on a distributor that hasn’t opened a movie in anywhere near as many as the 1,949 theaters “The Substance” did? “When we were selected for Cannes, we screened the movie to find a distributor, and Mubi immediately was so enthusiastic,” Fargeat explains. “There were different offers, but Mubi was the one that wanted it more than everyone else. And I think they understood the specific positioning of the film being a super-entertaining, wild ride for the audience, while at the same time dealing with deeper themes that have a resonance with our world. So they got the deal just before Cannes.” And just before she won the fest’s best screenplay award.

Like Fargeat, Huston also appreciated the way his distrib allowed him to stay involved. “We’ve gone too far to — at the last hurdle — hand the movie over to someone who could promise you the world and give you nothing. We’ve negotiated our P&A through a third party, so that we’re in control of the entire release strategy,” he says.

“The category of specialized film, one that was thought to have potentially disappeared due to pandemic pressure placing a renewed emphasis on attendance-building blockbusters, has flourished over the past few years,” notes Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “A large number of freshly minted independent distributors with names unfamiliar even to those in the industry have sprung up since 2020 and have had some breakout successes, as well as the occasional misfire.”

While these new distribs can release some less-than-stellar films, they potentially do more than just fulfill sales contracts that mandate a wide domestic release, and even help films get a step ahead in the awards race.

One of the most ambitious new companies is Briarcliff Entertainment, founded in 2018 by Lionsgate and Open Road Films vet Tom Ortenberg. He overcame hesitant producers and challenging odds to quickly get the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice” in theaters before Election Day. “There’s been a void in the mid-size theatrical distribution space, and that’s a space that I’ve occupied pretty comfortably throughout a fair amount of my career,” he says. “I don’t know that there’s anybody in the business as good or as well equipped for mid-sized, wide release theatrical indie films as Briarcliff.“ His slate ranges from commercial fare like the Dec. 6 horror film “Werewolves” to riskier bets like the upcoming drama “Magazine Dreams,” which Searchlight dropped after star Jonathan Majors was found guilty on two misdemeanor counts of assault and harassment of his former girlfriend.

Though “The Apprentice” took in only $3 million after an Oct. 11 wide release bow, its publicity and solid reviews positioned it for a Nov. 1 pre-Election Day PVOD release and awards push for its cast. And Ortenberg notes that, despite the controversy, “there’s a reason that Searchlight paid a reported $10 million for ‘Magazine Dreams’ — it’s that good. I believe it deserves an opportunity to be seen, not unlike ‘The Apprentice,’ and Jonathan will have every opportunity to speak for himself.”

This year, the biggest indie hits have been Neon’s horror entry “Longlegs” ($74.3 million), A24’s thriller “Civil War” ($68.6 million) and the low-budget slasher film “Terrifier 3,” which has earned $50.5 million and counting for Cineverse, the new incarnation of Cinedigm. All three opened in 2,500 or more theaters based on their genre appeal, but keeping most indie films there long enough to build traditional word-of-mouth is more challenging than ever. The average theatrical-to-digital premiere windows have dropped from 80 days in Q3 of 2019 to 32 days in Q3 of 2024, according to the Numbers.

But indie distribs still have the flexibility to extend windows when needed. One category that’s remained especially strong in theaters are faith-based films, or movies marketed towards those audiences. After a 68-day window for its $184 million-grossing human trafficking drama “Sound of Freedom” last year, Angel Studios kept its $7.2 million-grossing blind orphan drama “Sight” and $19.5 million-grossing nun biopic “Cabrini” in theaters for around three months before their digital releases this year.

Another new studio, ShowBiz Direct, targeted right-leaning audiences to bring its Ronald Reagan biopic “Reagan” to a $30 million gross with just a 45-day theatrical window. At least one new project is expected to be announced soon, and one of the company’s three co-founders, Scott Kennedy, is also the founder of “Day of the Fight” distrib Falling Forward Films.

With theatrical distribution still in a state of flux after the pandemic, keeping track of the players can be a bit like watching a game of musical chairs, as various distribution veterans work together on different releases as consultants, partners or behind-the-scenes “white label” silent partners. One of the most experienced consultants and distributors in his own right is Variance Films founder Dylan Marchetti, who has worked on indie blockbusters like “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “RRR,” plus several films with Mubi (including “The Substance”), the relatively new boutique distributor Sideshow (Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”) and his own releases.

There are several reasons indies are doing more wide openings. “I’m sure that for some companies, there’s a minimum screen count component to the release,” Marchetti explains. “The challenge with the platform release is that if the film doesn’t do well initially, it becomes challenging to hit your commitments.” This isn’t a factor with films Variance works on, he notes, since they don’t take on projects that may run into this problem.

The main reasons for fewer platform releases, he adds, are that “when you’re on a constrained marketing budget, it can be pretty expensive to stretch a release out for three or four weeks. And as marketing has shifted almost entirely digitally, there’s not the localized advertising that there used to be. You can target digital ads locally, but your campaign is national, so when you platform too slowly, you end up getting a lot of interest from places where the film isn’t playing, which is wasted money on the smaller side. On the larger side, when you are spending aggressively, you maybe should take a bigger swing on it [if] there are audiences everywhere that want to see it.”

Ketchup Entertainment has shown that you don’t need to be one of the main indie distributors — or have a platform release — to be an awards season player. This year alone, the 12-year-old company helped Jessica Chastain land an Indie Spirit best lead performance nomination for her starring role in “Memory.” “We are very filmmaker friendly,” says CEO Gareth West. “We want them to be involved in the process, from the trailers to the poster to the publicity campaigns to where we’re going with the marketing. In particular with ‘Memory,’ Jessica Chastain was just so gracious and so helpful with her knowledge.”

Vertical Entertainment, which has worked alongside Roadside Attractions in recent years to release films like “Emily the Criminal” with Aubrey Plaza and “Lee” with Kate Winslet, is adding more prestigious fare to its genre-heavy library. Their Jude Law-Nicholas Hoult-toplined terrorist thriller “The Order” premiered in Venice and Toronto, and will hit several other awards circuit festivals before its Dec. 6 premiere. “We were predominantly [focused on] home viewing before the pandemic, and as we got back to a more normal way of life, it was clear to us that a successful, healthy theatrical window in front of all of that is critical to downstream revenue,” says co-founder and CEO Peter Jarowey.

Several distribs have ties to this year’s American Film Market. Ketchup has helped finance films like Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” which sold to Neon, and longtime AFM player Highland Film Group launched its domestic theatrical and home entertainment distribution arm the Avenue in 2020. Its president of domestic marketing and distribution, JJ Caruth, has released a couple of non-Highland projects, and she’s looking to acquire more from this year’s Toronto lineup. But being attached to a foreign sales company also has its advantages. “I’m in a lucky position [to] review all of the projects that come to Highland for them to sell, and I can pick movies early on that I’m interested in for domestic,” she says. “So as packages come together, I can chime in on cast choices that will work better for the U.S. market and identify projects before they come to market.”

Some new boutique outfits are also providing hope for indie filmmakers hoping to be seen on the big screen. In February, Metrograph Pictures appointed the well-respected A24 vet David Laub to head its New York-based company.

The new opportunities are music to the ears of writer-director Nicholas Colia, whose coming-of-age comedy “Griffin in Summer” won U.S. narrative feature, best screenplay and best new narrative director at Tribeca when it premiered there in June, earning a 93% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The deadpan tale of a theater kid and his first crush stars Owen Teague, Melanie Lynskey and Kathryn Newton.

As a classic word-of-mouth sleeper without big stars, and perhaps due to the festival being better known for its docs than bidding wars, it could take a bit longer for the filmmakers to find a company that knows how to sell it and feels as passionate about it as they do. “The reaction since Tribeca has been really just beyond my wildest dreams. On this festival tour, the response is always so over the top,” says Colia, who’s talked with streamers and theatrical players and is open to both. “I just want as many people to see the film as possible.”