Sooo. Silence is often an effective negotiating tool. The first offer I got, that lowball offer, the one I griped loudly about last week, well, I went back with a markup of the deal and sent it into this distrib.
Among other things, I asked for a $500,000 advance against DVD sales in the event that I didn’t get anything more than a test release for the movie, ie. because it didn’t gross enough to mandate the distributor to move to a wider release.
Did I think that he would accept this DVD advance number? Not particularly. He made it very clear in his response that he wouldn’t even discuss a number like that. And that if the movie failed to get a wide enough release, because it didn’t test well, that would be because the movie wasn’t strong enough, not because the job the distrtib did wasn’t strong enough.
OK. I guess that settles that.
So I do what I do, in negotiations, to find out what the other side is really upto.
I create silence. I wait for them to respond.
Its not always easy to do because sometimes you really want a response on something and you want it now. Good or bad.
Been there? Yeah, I live there too. Used to live there all the time, so it’s a matter of willpower for me.
So now he emailed, he wants to talk on Monday, and we shall see if the waiting, if the creation of silence, helped in the negotiations.
What did make it easier, is that I don’t necessarily want to speed up the negotiations. Because, “drum roll please” – perhaps we have had a break. This woman who our in-house photographer knows from the pub around the corner, just happens to be (1) a huge fan of a old short film that the Artist did, that was nominated for an Academy Award, and (2) a fan of the movie (just having seen it and loved it). Went to lunch on Friday with her. She feels the movie is a (1) wide (2) studio or major release. When I say wide, I mean wide for this genre (or she means it) which is 800 screens.
She is going to be calling the new head of MGM and her distrib friends at FOCUS as well. She plans on telling them that the movie is a movie that they need to see and consider. I quote her “This movie should play very well with audiences. Its studio quality and better than a lot of the crap that gets released by the majors.”
OKAY.
Be following up with her this week. Fingaz and toez crossed.
Stayed at E’s last nite, first “SLEEPOVER” hehe. I think she finally decided she liked me.
(Not so) Grumpy (today).
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