Copyright Variety
As many independent films continue to falter at the box office, and prevailing wisdom has either low-budget indies or low-nine-figure franchise hopefuls as the safest bets, two new domestic distributors — Black Bear and Row K Entertainment — have a strategy that’s counterintuitive these days: releasing mid-level-budget films. The big question, given the challenging marketplace, is why. “There just aren’t a lot of options to release these kinds of movies,” says entertainment attorney and producer Elsa Ramo, founder of the L.A.-based firm Ramo Law. “So I think some of these entrepreneurial companies like [producer-turned-U.S.-distributor] Black Bear are servicing a market where there are fewer buyers than ever before.” The road Row K and Black Bear are traveling is a precarious one. As streamers began drawing a large share of adult audiences away from theaters, many similar mid-budget distribs like CBS Films, Millennium and Overture Films shuttered in the 2010s, while STX and Summit partnered with others for distribution. Newer companies like A24 and Neon have emerged, but there have been far fewer lightning-in-a-bottle hits like “Twilight” or “Everything Everywhere All at Once” to support them. In the last decade, the only top 10 box office films that weren’t from major studios were Lionsgate’s “John Wick: Chapter 4” and faith-based Angel Studios’ “Sound of Freedom” in 2023 (around $185 million each), and Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” in 2015 ($270 million). Yet a distressed market can offer opportunities. “We launched Row K this August because we saw a clear gap in the market for a distributor focused on mid-budget, commercial films. Between the tentpole-budget levels of major studios and the limited reach of boutique players, Row K was built to fill this void,” says co-chairman Christopher Woodrow. It’s funded by the entertainment investment firm Media Capital Technologies, which is backed by MassMutual and other institutional investors, plus high-net-worth investors. “We saw that theater attendance has been trending upwards, with younger audiences returning to theaters seeking original storytelling and a broader diversity of content, [so] we knew there was an opportunity to thrive alongside big studio releases. While there will always be market challenges, a key focus of ours is efficient spending.” With leadership from co-chairman Raj Singh, Imax and Paramount vet Megan Colligan as president and CAA as one of its advisors, Row K picked up four films at fall festivals — Gus Van Sant’s crime drama “Dead Man’s Wire” (out Jan. 9 after an awards-qualifying run), Maude Apatow’s comedy “Poetic License” (May 15), Jaume Collet-Serra’s action reboot “Cliffhanger” (Aug. 28) and Tom Dean and Marc Eldridge’s romance “Charlie Harper” (Sept. 25) — as part of its plan to release 10 films in the U.S. or North America annually before increasing its slate. “While we’ve focused on acquisitions and pre-buys so far, we will finance and produce our own slate as well, then use bespoke distribution strategies on a title-by-title basis.” Singh says. “Ancillary will play a huge role, and we’re in the process of negotiating several ancillary deals.” In July, Black Bear founder Teddy Schwarzman recruited CAA Media Finance co-head Benjamin Kramer to be president of its new U.S. distribution arm, with an aim to release up to 12 in-house and third-party productions each year. As its head of U.S. theatrical distribution, former Lionsgate exec David Spitz will help shepherd a wide range of auteur-driven films and genre fare, building on the company’s distribution experience in the U.K. and Ireland as Black Bear U.K., and in Canada under its subsidiary Elevation Pictures. Since the contracting marketplace has left producers with fewer options, some in the industry suspect that Black Bear’s new shingle is mainly designed to guarantee theatrical releases for its own films. “We’ll see if they pick up films from other producers and not just their own,” says one vet distributor. But an insider says their ability to draw from their own international sales titles, plus finished and in-production films from others, will put less pressure on them to buy at any given marketplace. First up: the new Sydney Sweeney-led boxing biopic “Christy.” The Jason Statham action vehicle “Shelter” is out Jan. 30, and two more — the Matthew McConaughey-led crime drama “The Rivals of Amziah King” and the Leo Woodall/Dustin Hoffman starrer “Tuner” — are among its expected 2026 releases. And with Warner Bros. Discovery’s expected sale or split likely to make the theatrical distribution landscape contract even further, AFM sellers will be rooting for both new distribs.
