Indie films flicker

Didn't the independent film scene seem like an unstoppable, invincible beast 10, 15 years ago?

The mainstream, million-dollar success of Oscar-winning Miramax films like "Pulp Fiction," "The Piano" and "The Crying Game" led critics and audiences to delve deep into the foreign film world for alternatives to big-budget, mediocre Hollywood fare. Indie film festival Sundance became the place to be, as execs and distributors flocked to the snowy mountains of Utah at the beginning of the year to find films worth acquiring.

Many of these DIY features became legitimate, sleeper hits, recouping their budgets and then some at the box office.

U.K. crossover "The Full Monty" had a $3.5 million budget and raked in $46 million in the U.S. alone. "The Blair Witch Project," which cost $60,000 and a two-piece at Bojangles', made $141 million. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" cost $5 million and took in $241 million.

In any given year, the bulk of best-picture Oscar nominees would come from an art house-vending outfit. It wasn't too long before studios began establishing their own indie-film wings, like Sony Pictures Classics and Fox Searchlight Pictures.

But these days the independent film scene is struggling. In the past several months, indie and foreign films seem to come and go every week without attracting ticket-buyers. Needless to say, this is making art-house theater proprietors nervous.

"Generally, we have over the course of a year, maybe two or three tent-pole movies, at least one of which would've manifested itself by now," says John Munson, co-owner/manager of the Rialto Theatre in Raleigh. He says there hasn't been a successful run in his theater since "Juno" stopped playing there in February.

It appears that the industry is suffering from distributors who have failed to distribute.

This year, two indie-movie wings of major studios were shut down: Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse (formed by New Line Cinema, which also shut down earlier this year, and HBO Films). Meanwhile, Paramount Vantage laid off 60 workers, and its marketing and distribution were taken over by its parent company. Although they released such films as "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Babel," accolades and trophies weren't enough to keep the subsidiaries afloat.

Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Entertainment, says the major-studio distributors are mostly to blame.

"They created this problem that we're in now," he says, "where the studios got involved and they applied studio economics to independent film distribution. So, you know, production budgets grew dramatically. Marketing budgets grew dramatically. I think they all found out the audiences didn't grow at the same pace.

The indie boutiques that are still around, like Sony Classics, Fox Searchlight and Universal's Focus Features, are still picking up films, but mostly mainstream types. That way, if it becomes a big hit at the art houses they can expand to multiplexes.

But now it seems they are bypassing art-house theaters altogether. The comedy "Hamlet 2," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was snapped up by Focus for $10 million, will get the multiplex treatment when it's released Wednesday.

"When you get something that comes along that looks like it might do a little business, they give it to the mainstream theaters now," Munson says, "because that's who they're used to dealing with."

There is also an overabundance of low-budget films that are more likely to go straight to your local Blockbuster. And people are waiting until these films hit DVD or cable instead of venturing outside to see a movie.