A Locker full of gold

Only in this business can a success story like The Hurt Locker unfold. Sixteen months ago, the film had its world premiere in Venice and Toronto with no domestic distributor attached. Nicolas Chartier, whose Voltage Pictures produced and sold the film, laughed when he told me this week that several major studio distributors didn’t even show up to the Toronto screening. There was no pre-buy interest for the US; only after the Toronto screening did Summit Entertainment step in with a $1.5m offer for domestic rights.

“The Hurt Locker is a classic independent package. It’s the kind of film that awards were designed to help.”

This week, as the film and its director, Kathryn Bigelow, scooped top honours from the Los Angeles and New York film critics’ bodies as well as key Golden Globe nominations in picture (drama), director and screenplay categories, the heart-pounding film about a US bomb-disposal team in Iraq is looking like the one to beat at the Academy Awards on March 7.

After talking to Chartier on the day of the Globes announcement - and he is a nominee as a producer - it’s intriguing to look at how the film was greenlit by a handful of key pre-sales to international distributors. The budget, which Chartier says was “under $15m”, was 50% financed by pre-sales to SND in France, TMG/Concorde in Germany, Videa in Italy, Belga in Benelux, Imagem in Brazil, Equinoxe in Canada and EAP in Eastern Europe among others.That was in 2006 and 2007 when you could still pre-sell a movie of this nature.

Some buyers were wary of the Iraq subject matter. After all, movies about the conflict such as In The Valley Of Elah, Home Of The Brave and Redacted were tanking all through that period. But the buyers who did commit responded to Mark Boal’s screenplay and the Bigelow name. It certainly wasn’t the no-star cast, led by Jeremy Renner.

The remaining 50% of the budget came from hedge funds and an equity investment from Voltage itself. “It was a tough movie to put together,” recalls Chartier.

The film was a strong performer in the UK ($1.6m) and France ($1.7m) and, now that awards groups are lining up to honour the film, distributors will be able to capitalise on the buzz for DVD releases. In the case of some territories which haven’t opened, such as Japan and Spain, theatrical openings will benefit. Summit, which took $12.7m on the film in the summer in the US, is re-releasing it in 120 theatres this weekend on the back of awards.

To me, The Hurt Locker is a classic independent package. It’s a film that studios deemed too risky. It’s the work of a visionary film-maker and its production was enabled by territorial distributors. It is also set to make considerable financial gains because of awards recognition. It’s the kind of film that awards were designed to help.

For Voltage, the success of The Hurt Locker is a validation of its efforts to produce and invest in its own projects by top-class directors such as Bigelow. And, although the climate for making daring independent films on the $15m scale has deteriorated, Chartier feels there are more opportunities than ever for independents.

“There are a lot of great directors not working at the moment,” he says. “We are actively looking to finance more movies with these interesting film-makers.”

So has Voltage recouped yet on its investment in The Hurt Locker? Chartier hesitates. “We didn’t do it for the money,” he chuckles. “Hopefully we will go into profit one day. I don’t know in how many years. But we did it to do a good first one, so we could do others in the future.”

In the midst of the gloom that has shrouded the independent film marketplace in 2009, it is heartening to refocus on The Hurt Locker and be reminded that sometimes the toughest films to get made can often reap the greatest rewards.