Cinematical

Cuban is brash and cuts some people the wrong way, but he is revolutionizing the way films are made. His idea to release DVDs of a film in the lobby of the film as a means to cut DVD pirating is pure genius.

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As with all aspects of the indie film world, it will be Landmark and Cuban/Wagner that make money from this venture, not filmmakers. I would be shocked if any filmmaker recover the $40,000 initial investment. And there will be other inevitable costs that come along with releasing a film theatrically that will make it more than $40,000. Truly Indie will become a tool for distributors, not filmmakers. As is the case with CAVITE, this only seems to make sense when you have a company like Magnolia backing you up and giving extra support. I'm really skeptical about the whole thing.

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Agreed here, Joe. It seems to be a really expensive way for a filmmaker to get the "Black Box" experience, but ultimately puts the burden on them to get enough butts in the seats for a return on that $40K investment. Not to mention actually making back the money that the film cost and any marketing and festival touring expenses they've already put in. Truly Indie seems more like a show piece than anything really revolutionary with distribution. The scariest part is that the investment is for geographically limited markets. My friend and coworker Rick wrote about that at http://spout.com

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Anyone who thinks that Truly Indie will truly help filmmakers is fooling themselves.

Although he owns Landmark Theaters, Mark Cuban seems to be doing his best to end the exhibition of independent film. Mr. Cuban's desire to sell DVD's in the lobby is not a method to cut down on piracy, but a method to increase his bottom line. He profits from DVD sales, even as he discourages attendance at Landmark Theatres. Additionally, he's adding digital projection to every Landmark screen so he can have more flexible programming. What would Mr. Cuban like shown in his theatres? Monday night football and network tv shows like "Lost".

Mr. Cuban has made it quite clear that the only thing he cares about is making money, so anyone hoping that he will do anything to help filmmakers should remember that he will help you only as long as it's profitable for him. Go to any Landmark theatre and you'll see posters and flyers encouraging theatre rentals. Truly Indie is just a fancy marketing front for this rental program. The only advantage of Truly Indie is to take the rental fee out of the pocket of the local theatre manager and put it directly into Mr. Cuban's.

Truly Indie already has your money, so don't expect local marketing support. Landmark will have no more interest in promoting a film rented through Truly Indie than they will in a corporation renting a screen for a PowerPoint presentation.

The grass-roots marketing structure that Landmark touts on its website is being dismantled. Several city managers, who were responsible for local marketing, have been laid off recently. Seattle's city manager had been at Landmark for over 20 years. At Landmark's Kendall Square Cinema in Boston, the old management (5 and 10 year Landmark employees) was pushed out to make way for new management brought in from megachain AMC. One ex-AMC-er has said to both theatre staff and patrons that he simply doesn't care for the kind of films shown at the Kendall. Is this who you want promoting your movie?

If filmmakers want to pay to release their own film, they should contact truly independent theatres, like the Brattle in Cambridge, and stop supporting a corporation that presents itself as independent, but is as profit-driven as any of the major chains.

Mark Cuban is no friend to independent film, and it high time that the indie community stopped applauding him. As the nation's largest chain of art-house theatres becomes a chain of pay-per-view satellite tv screens, the only revolution he's bringing about is to relegate indie films to DVD-only releases.

Don't agree? See http://www.markcubanhasnoclothes.com

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This is just an easy way to four wall a group of threatres. It isn't terribly innovative but it will help some people try their hand at limited self-distribution. There is always a (slim) chance that the show will strike a cord with the audience and a "real" distributor will pick it up to take it wide. This is more of a threat to the 137,947 film festivals that are sprouting like weeds... talk about cynically expoiting indie film makers.

And yes, shock of shocks, Mark is doing this to make money. This isn't a zero sum game folks, the man doesn't have to loose money for it to be good for the little guy. I think this is a good thing and will benefit both Mark and any indie folks that want to fold $40,000 distribution expenses onto the end of the post-production bill.

And 'Lost' on the big screen? I gotta admit that I'd rather see that than 99.999% of the indie films floating around out there.

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