Evaluation Question 3

Q3 – What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Film distributors are the making and advertisement process to making a film popular and viewed by a wide audience; distribution is the highly competitive business for launching and sustaining films in the market place. There are six top names for film distributors around the world:

1. Warner Bros.2. Walt Disney Pictures3. Sony Pictures4. Paramount Pictures5. 20th Century Fox6. Universal

Most mainstream films (this includes our chosen genre Rom Com) are sustained by these top film distributors, our film opening genre included. Low budget films that have made huge success in our Rom Com category are films such as – Little Miss Sunshine and Juno.

Juno had a production budget of $7,000,000 and after being distributed by Fox Searchlight it grossed $289,545,278 in total of the worldwide box office sale and domestic DVD sales.

Little Miss Sunshine had a production budget of $8,000,000 and after being distributed by Fox Searchlight it grossed $156,067,130 in total of the worldwide box office sales and domestic DVD sales.

For our Rom Com film ‘I Can Explain’ like many other popular and successful Romantic Comedies we would be distributed by a major distributer rather than an independent one. Many of the Romantic Comedy films we have taken inspiration and develop conventions from are distributed by some of the top six major film production distributors. However, our chosen film distributor for our Romantic Comedy film would be Sony Pictures

These films are all distributed by Sony Pictures and are the films we have taken inspiration from throughout making our film opening -

The Holiday Dec 8, 2006 Romantic Comedy PG-13 $63,280,000 $75,519,443

Made of Honor May 2, 2008 Romantic Comedy PG-13 $46,012,734 $50,562,742

The Ugly Truth Jul 24, 2009 Romantic Comedy R $88,915,214 $93,538,806

Just Go With It Feb 11, 2011 Romantic Comedy PG-13 $103,028,109 $103,028,109

Friends with Benefits Jul 22, 2011 Romantic Comedy R $55,802,754 $55,802,754

These successful Romantic Comedies have all come from a successful film distributor, and if we had the choice we would distribute our film with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to hopefully be as successful and gross as much as these films. If advertised and publicised/reviewed in the right formats and publishing our film could be successful under Sony Pictures distribution.

Romantic Comedies attract to a mainstream audience as it is a mainstream genre differently for example Film Noir is more for a niche audience as it doesn’t have as bigger audience compared to the top genres such as comedy or thriller etc.

According to the Top Grossing Genres from 1995 to 2012 Romantic Comedy came 6th in the ranking for total grossing genre for film. This shows the popularity for this particular genre hence making our target audience mainstream, leading to a mainstream film distributor being the best for popularising our film.