Movie makers picture brighter times ahead

MAJOR players of the independent film industry gathered for the giant Cannes film festival say they are starting to see a bottom to their recession-weary market that foretells better times ahead.

The Cannes film market is a massive event for buying and selling rights to show movies in theatres, on TV and in other media worldwide.

Each year, executives gather here to haggle over film prices, which – owing to the recession and other factors – have fallen 15% to 20% from last year.

But company chiefs are now seeing a glut of indie movies slowly ending, funding for media companies freeing up and business plans being scaled back to the point where bigger profits – or at least fewer losses – loom ahead for makers and distributors of top movies with big-name stars.

“What you see is there is starting to be more capital coming into the market,” said Mark Gill, chief executive of Los Angeles-based indepen-dent movie maker The Film Department.

While movie fans follow Penelope Cruz or Brad Pitt walking up Cannes’s glamorous red carpet for premieres, industry chiefs follow business deals made at Cannes’s movie market.

In the commercial arena, low-budget B and C-grade movies like Hitler Goes Kaput! compete for buyers against A titles such as the upcoming musical Nine, starring Cruz and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard.

Well-funded producers with A titles are finding ready buyers, but firms with B titles and poor business plans that thrived in good times because easy money flowed in from Wall Street may soon be out of business.

“Where you have those (A movies), business is as buoyant as ever. Deals are a little tougher to get made, and there is pressure on pricing. But the truth is the right movie still fetches the same and, in some cases, actually more,” said Joe Drake, president of the motion picture group for independent film company Lionsgate.

Buyers and sellers agree that how much the recession and global financial meltdown have impacted the film market depends on what countries and companies one is talking about.

For instance, in Germany, conservative posturing in good times has led to more stability this year for movie and TV firms, so its players are as active as ever.

Meanwhile, Christopher Chia, chief executive of the Media Development Authority of Singapore, said his government has a new five-year plan calling for a little more than $150 million (€110m) in media investment, up 40% from a previous plan.

Still, all is not sunshine on the French Riviera.

In recent years, easy money fuelled an oversupply of films looking for distributors and meant buyers could easily pay for movies and soak up excess supply.

Those days are gone.

The global recession has curtailed TV advertising, meaning broadcasters can no longer pay ever-higher prices to license movies for screening in their home territories.