Behind the Scenes: Distributing Our Indie Film In Theaters
In this article I'm going to share the exact strategy we used to put our movie Faith of Angels in hundreds of theaters across the country.
Producers and EPs need to have a plan for distribution before they ever raise money for the project. You must take responsibility for creating a path to profitability, rather than just hoping for some "magic money" to appear when the film is done.
Hope is not a strategy, yet too many filmmakers hope their film gets into a festival, hope that someone there likes it, hopes that person works at a distribution company, and hopes they make an offer to buy or distribute the movie.
Hope is not a strategy.
Rather than just telling you what not to do, I'm sharing every aspect of how we independently distributed our movie Faith of Angels in September 2024, and The Carpenter in November 2024.
Both films were produced on low budgets, had small marketing budgets, and yet played in hundreds of theaters for Faith of Angels, and a nationwide release on 600+ screens for The Carpenter.
If we can do it, you can do it to.
The Data That Informs The Strategy
Stephen Follows, my favorite film industry analyst, ran the numbers and found that only 17% of independent films (about 1 out of 6) end up with a large release, which he defined as a $100k+ box office.
Stephen Follows
His research showed that:
- 40% of independent films don't release at all in theaters
- 35% have a "nominal" release, meaning no numbers were reported
- 8% grossed between $1 and $100k
The odds are already against you having a successful release as an independent film. In 2023 there were between 504 and 590 movies released in the US and Canada. Here's some data on the most profitable:
(Boxofficemojo only gives data on the top or bottom 200 films)
63 films out of 590 (10.6%) were independents that crossed $1m in box office. 9 films did more than $10m (1.5%), and 2 surpassed $100m in box office (0.3%).
So how does all of this inform your strategy? A few thoughts:
- You can't plan on being a breakout success. Angel Studios did $184m domestic box office on Sound of Freedom, but their other three releases all made between $11-12.5m.
- There are only a handful of distributors breaking the $1m mark. You'll need to work with one of them or copy their release strategy to be successful.
- Box office is a function of number of screens multiplied by per-screen average. The best-performing indie films average $7,500 per screen for their theatrical run. To break $1m in box office, you need 133 screens. To break $10m, you'll need 1,333 screens, and so on.
Our Distribution Strategy For Faith of Angels
We took all of that same information and used it to inform our strategy.
Here's how we structured our release:
First, we hired a distributor, Purdie Distribution, to handle the day-to-day work of booking our movie in theaters. We also hired a marketing firm, PR specialists, and others to help with billboards, screenings, and more.
We've had some of them on our podcast, Truly Independent, which you can watch here:
With the team in place, Garrett (the writer, director, and producer of these films) and I sat down to put the strategy together along with their help.
We identified 1250 theaters that had done at least $5k in ticket sales on comparable indie movies in our genre. This data was pulled from Comscore, and helped us narrow in on the exact theaters that had the best turnout for similar movies in our genre.
Purdie Distribution reached out to over 800 of them a few months before the release to let them know the film is coming and on what days. 175 of those booked before opening weekend of Faith of Angels.
After seeing a successful strategy emerge from our research, we decided to do a tiered release. We started with a limited release of 31 theaters in Utah where our core audience is.
We held the premiere on the Monday of release week, and used pictures and videos from that night to build momentum into the weekend on social media.
We had a massive, sold-out premiere and dozens of attendees shared the film online.
We also set up special screenings with cast for the opening weekends. We planned those in key cities where our team and cast lived, so Atlanta, Dallas, LA, and Sacramento.
One of the biggest strategies in how to deploy a limited budget is to do in-theater marketing, meaning you go directly to the circuit (theater chain) and give them some of your marketing spend.
Compared to advertising on Facebook or Google, you're putting your film in front of the audience that is already looking for movies to watch. You show up on the home screen of the circuit, and they run ads on your behalf using their social channels. You can tap into their email list, and reach the hundreds of thousands or millions of people who already like and trust the brand.
We also spent money on social media advertising, billboards, and radio, as well as PR and media appearances.
The goal of all of this effort is singular: a high per-screen average.
If the movie does, say, $120k+ in its opening weekend (a $4k per-screen average), that incentivizes the rest of the 800 theaters we reached out to to request the film for the wider opening on Sept 27th.
Why? Because if Inside Out only stands to make $750 in its 14th weekend, as a theater booker you could swap it out for our movie that has the potential of making $2k or more for your theater.
Our goal is to expand from ~30 to 300+ screens after the limited Utah release.
We hope to get to that $7,500+ per screen average for the run of show. A $10m box office would require 1,300 sceens, as mentioned earlier. We're looking at $3-5m as a successful outcome, but that requires a higher per-screen average. (I'll update this post with real results as they come in).
At this point, once you have the movie in theaters, the film is now in the hands of the audience. You've been the steward from development all the way until now, but you've got realize that it's now out of your control. You likely don't have tons of budget to expand further, or to keep spending on ads. So you hang on for dear life, work the theater bookers to keep the movie in theaters for as long as possible, and rely on word of mouth from the audience that likes the movie.
Anyone Can Do This
This is a very basic starting point that covers our distribution strategy from a high level. But I know that there are many filmmakers who will see this and start thinking of all the reasons why it won't work for them.
"But I don't have budget" - Neither do we.
We're getting scrappy, asking for favors, and leveraging the network we've built over decades in the industry. You can do the same at whatever level you're at.
"I don't have a distributor?" - Hire one.
Find the distributors who need films like yours. You want to be on the right side of supply and demand, meaning you have more demand than you have supply. If a distributor has more supply than demand, you're a good match!
Do your research, find the other movies that have had the outcome you want, reach out to those distributors. Don't look at the studios or mini majors until you've done this successfully with an independent.
Part of your job as a Producer and the steward of your movie is to ensure that it gets to the audience you made it for.
That means not just producing the movie, but getting it to market.
You have to take responsibility and make it happen, no matter what constraints or limitations you have.
What questions do you have about this strategy? Let me know in the comments!
Want help with your film? Book a strategy session.
Listen to the Truly Independent podcast where we break down our strategy each week as we put our films in theaters.
Learn more about Producer Fund to see how we'll apply this strategy over the next five films.
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