Welcome to the most exciting new independent films and documentaries … coming soon to a computer near you.
As theater owners stew in Las Vegas over the major studios' plans to shorten their exclusive windows, a quiet revolution is taking place for smaller films, where theatrical distribution can be at best a brief stopover on the way to life in a big online arthouse.
Companies like Magnolia and IFC offer release strategies that often bypass theatrical in favor of video-on-demand for independent films -- and with those films showing up online on services like Comcast's Xfinity TV (which has its own "Indie Film Club"), it's become far easier to find even recent small movies on the computer than in theaters.
The Kirsten Dunst/Ryan Gosling drama "All Good Things," for example, was available online and on VOD a month before its theatrical release last December. The Oscar-nominated documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop" hit VOD and iTunes three weeks before it was released on DVD.
In May, the Tribeca Film Festival will make several of its films available for streaming at the same time as their festival debuts.
And at the recent South by Southwest Film Festival, the documentary "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop" (left) was sold in a multi-platform deal that put more emphasis on its VOD, streaming and mobile components than on its theatrical one, which it simply characterized as "special theatrical 'event' screenings" in the press release announcing the deal.
Its post-SXSW debut will come not in movie theaters, but streamed in a special preview for AT&T's U-verse customers.
The message is clear: for some movies theatrical is for show, but on-demand and streaming is just as important.
"It's more important," corrected Gavin Polone, O'Brien's manager and the co-producer of "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop." "With a movie that's not 'Avatar,' particularly documentaries and smaller films that may never come to a theater near you, those other avenues become more important than theatrical."
Rick Allen, the CEO of Snagfilms, which offers pay-to-view and free-streaming opportunities for independent documentaries, agrees.
"The Conan movie is a terrific film, and I think it'll get the broadest audience going out in VOD and free-streamed windows," he told TheWrap. "It seems entirely possible that for a film like that, the transaction window and the ad-supported second window will net them more than the theatrical."
The transaction window he referred to is usually the first step in the online and VOD world: it includes pay-to-view opportunities on services like iTunes, Amazon and Hulu Plus. The second window generally includes free streaming (as on services like the regular Hulu), supported by advertisements.
"Those two windows all make up big opportunities for revenue for a filmmaker," said Allen. "As more films go out in more ways, we're all learning about the size of the market -- and we believe very strongly in that market as it exists outside of traditional theatrical release."
