Business of Film with film critic Mark Kermode (Notes and Quotes)

Development Hell is a common phrase used in the media industry to

describe a state of a project being in constant development without
progressing to production. Often, there is a 50/50 chance for a film to be
made. Something good/hot one week may become bad/cold the next
week, so films are constantly being developed. During this process time is
lost and some money can be lost too, for example, Warner Bros had to pay
over ten million to Tim Burton and over 1o million to Nicolas Caig to keep
their schedules free so that they could possibly make Superman Lives and
they didnt end up making the film.
Under The Skin 13 years in development. (Constantly changing writers)
Its hell of a lot easier to give another screenwriter half a million dollars to
have a crack in it to see if they can come up with something better than
what youve got David Hues
I think I never put a better team in my whole life, literally every night I
went to bed believing I had kept the movie together for one more day and
every morning I woke up to another catastrophe. Linda Obst
To a lot of people who work in the film business feel that it is a matter of
life and death as Linda said herself.
Films getting funded and distributed
David Kosse -The film industry has to reinvent itself every year, every
film, distribution and production company has to build its business from
the start and every film itself is effectively like a start up business
Some of the start up films become businesses themselves for example the
harry potter franchise, however most are just a one off. Its very risk but
the returns occasionally are highly massive. Its a case of high risk, high
return within the industry. The film business in general is almost like a
break even business, except for the sequel business. The American
studios are each part of massive con conglomerates and they are focused
in making movies that are targeted to an entire global audience which
over the past five to ten year have changed an importance and have
skewed the type of movies these studios are making. These businesses
are looking to create brands that they can grow and exploit worldwide.
Screenwriters are the basis of everything - William Goldman
If you dont have a steady script, it will not make it as a movie.

Nobody has the least idea what movie is gonna work and nobody has the
least idea is gonna be a phenomenal success or is it gonna taint. William
Goldman
Adam fields
Author of Tales of development hell, David Hues is also a screenwriter
who has experienced the process first hand. Your screenplay will be rewritten and re-written.
Sold a film that he had been working on for 9 years which was about an
outbreak of Ebola on a plane, but it was finished when Ebola had become
well heard of and so it was advised to be re-written.
Casting The person you cast can sometimes if not all the time have a
huge impact on whether your script will be turned into a film or not.
Sometimes, there are certain actors and actresses that are wanted and
there can be a struggle to cast them. Named actors and actresses are in
theory at least an insurance of bankability.
Black List A list of films that fail to be screened, it is when screenwriter
were unable to get their scripts onto the screen. 270 out of 970 scripts are
actually screened.

Mathew Vaughn British director and producer

In England, most people think it is an achievement to get a film made,
but i think its crazy. we dont have a British film industry. We subsidise
British movies with tax breaks, but we dont get any of that money back
and were subsidising Hollywood, and were service providers but not an
industry- being a glamorous service provider.
The Harry Potter and Sat Wars films may be filmed and made in England,
benefiting from our generous tax rebate system but they are owned by
Hollywood studios which take the majority of the profit.
He doesnt agree with companies or rich people using tax money to fund
for their films which could either become successful or not when they
could fund for it themselves.
The distribution of Lock stock happened only because he had a record
deal which he couldnt afford to clear up the rights, which lead him to call,
Osman saying that he cant sell it. Osman rang PolyGram who had seen it
before and already turned it down but preceded with it as doing Osman a
favour. Mathew wanted to get Tom Cruise to watch the screenplay, he

turned up and there were only mid level executives. Later senior
executives showed up because they had heard Tom Cruise was there. Tom
Cruise stood up and said: this is the best movie Ive seen in years you
guys would be fools not to buy it. After this, he made all his money back
and eventually sold it for more than it had taken them to make it.