Wild Bunch Sets E-Distribution Slate

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deadline.com/2015/03/wild-bunch-e-distribution-slate-jason-blum-eli-roth-1201394463/

Wild Bunch Sets E-Distribution Slate With ‘Department Q’ Pics, Jason Blum Titles

An increasing bottleneck in the European exhibition sector — especially in France — sees as many as 15 theatrical releases a week, giving few movies the chance to separate themselves from the crowd, build and play out. French sales, finance and distrbution powerhouse Wild Bunch is eyeing a solution. In October, the company said it was launching Europe’s first “e-distribution” company to acquire titles for VOD release throughout Europe (or day-and-date with theatrical where laws permit) to bring movies to the widest possible audiences. The first film Wild Bunch acquired for the scheme was Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno. It’s now dated that pic for the 4th quarter of this year and set the rest of its slate, including a series of films produced by Jason Blum.

The first release under the new e-Cinéma service is Mikkel Nørgaard’s Danish blockbuster The Keeper Of Lost Causes. That’s the first film in the Department Q franchise which has led the local box office for the past two years. Lost Causes will go out on VOD only via such platforms as iTunes, Google Play, Orange and Wild Bunch’s own FilmoTV, and will be available via all of France’s internet access providers, reaching more than 80% of homes as of March 27. In a twist, Wild Bunch will then release the second film in the franchise, The Absent One, on April 8, but only in theaters — ideally capitalizing on online buzz generated by the first film.

Wild Bunch says it wants to “offer real theatrical films an alternative distribution model with the objective of creating real events of the films and getting them to the widest possible audience.” The current slate is for France only, although the company says it will quickly be in a position to exclusively release one film per month in the territories where it has distribution — Germany, Italy and Spain.

The other films on the 2015 VOD slate include Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s horror comedy What We Do In The Shadows for release this summer; Ramin Bahrani’s hit festival drama 99 Homes in September; James Corden-starrer One Chance this fall; and Sinister 2 in the 4th quarter. That horror pic will kick off the relationship with Blum which sees Brad Peyton’s Incarnate e-released by Wild Bunch in early 2016.

Wild Bunch had first experimented with an e-Cinéma release in May 2014 when it bypassed movie theaters to distribute Abel Ferrara’s sex scandal pic Welcome To New York on several platforms. There were 100K downloads within the first 10 days. Netflix then entered the market in September and quickly said it would release St Vincent and The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby without a theatrical window. Wild Bunch doesn’t see the streaming service as competition, however, and previously said it would work with the company when possible.

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variety.com/2015/digital/global/wild-bunch-bows-e-cinema-venture-with-mikkel-norgaards-nordic-noir-1201455324/

Wild Bunch Bows E-Cinema Venture with Mikkel Nørgaard’s Nordic Noir

PARIS–Pan-European super indie Wild Bunch is kicking off its digital distribution company with Mikkel Nørgaard’s hit ‘Nordic Noir’ thriller “The Keeper of Lost Causes,” based on Jussi Adler-Olsen’s bestselling Department Q literary franchise.

“The Keeper of Lost Causes,” whose Gallic title is “Misericorde,” will roll out on March 27 across most digital platforms – Club Video SFR, FilmoTV, Google Play, iTunes, MyTF1 VOD, Orange, Pluzz VAD, Videofuture and Wuaki.TV. The movie will be available on every ISP operators — Bouygues, Free, Numéricable, Orange and SFR — in order to cover about 80 percent of French households.

Wild Bunch will then release Norgaard’s “The Absent One,” (pictured above) the second opus based Adler-Olsen’s Department Q novels, in French theaters on April 8.

Repped in international markets by TrustNordisk, both “The Keeper of Lost Causes” and “The Absent One” were Denmark’s highest-grossing local FILMS of 2013 and 2014, respectively. Alder-Olsen’s Department Q novels represent one of the Nordics’ best-known franchises, having sold about 10 million copies throughout the world.

Launching its ‘e-cinema’ initiative with Nørgaard’s pics illustrate Wild Bunch’s ambition to venture off the beaten path by acquiring upscale foreign-language indies which may not have huge theatrical potential in a market as competitive as France, but can reach niche audiences via digital distribution.

The two-step strategy that Wild Bunch is orchestrating on the pair of Department Q-based movies is also meant to create an event and build up some buzz on the franchise online to optimize the theatrical release shortly after.

Wild Bunch stated that it plans on distributing one FILM per month via its e-cinema service and will be looking to expand its reach in European territories such as Germany, Italy and Spain, where its runs distribution operations.

The Paris-based outfit unveiled a raft of acquisitions for this year’s digital distribution slate: Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s “What We Do In The Shadows,” Ramin Bahrani’s “99 Homes,” David Frankel’s “One Chance,” Eli Roth’s “Green Inferno” and Cirian Foy’s “Sinister 2.”

Driven by Wild Bunch’s co-founder Vincent Maraval, the company first tested the potential of e-distribution with Abel Ferrara’s controversial drama “Welcome to New York,” which was released exclusively on digital platforms in France, in day-and-date with other territories.

Although France has a very strict release schedule giving exhibitors and pay TV channels exclusive windows, Wild Bunch is not violating that schedule since none of the FILMS it has acquired for digital distrib were pre-financed by French TV channels or picked up for theatrical distribution.

“In the U.S., digital players have rescued independent FILMS by providing them with a viable alternative when traditional specialty distributors like Picturehouse and Paramount Classics vanished. And in a way, we strive to play a similar role in Europe, where independent distributors are increasingly struggling (…), have more and more difficulty selling movies to traditional Pay TV channels and are faced with skyrocketing P&A costs and faster-than-ever turnover rate in theaters,” Maraval told Variety when announcing the venture in October.