5 Strategies as plans and perspective
Case studies of Norwegian movies released in 2019
This chapter examines the strategies of local film distributors through two case studies. These present companies that work in the opposing ends of the Norwegian film industry landscape, and are based on interviews with senior executives. These case studies offer insight into how the distributors think about their strategies and allows analysis of them as the organisation’s plans and perspectives.
The first case examines a year with SF Studios and Norsk Filmdistribusjon, two high-resource distributors that release most of the commercially oriented Norwegian movies. The second case examines the release of Barn Haugerud (2019) a movie produced by Motlys and released by Arthaus, companies that pursue artistic and low-resource specialist strategies.
The two cases were chosen to represent breadth and to offer views from both aspects of the industry. The aim of these case studies was to get the distributors to express their views and their reasoning behind their strategic decisions. While both the beginning and the end of this chapter offers analyses of these views, the main body of this chapter delves into the two cases through detailed interview excerpts and is therefore more descriptive.
While SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon are minuscule compared to the Hollywood majors, it still makes sense to view them as local “majors”, as the two companies are clearly the most important distributors in Norway from an economic perspective. SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon are the only companies with ownership interests in multiple production companies, they have large Scandinavian companies as owners, and they regularly invest in Norwegian movies that have relatively large budgets and admissions. As established in the previous chapter, this allows SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon to pursue high-resource strategies. In 2019 SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon released five and six movies respectively, almost half of the 23 Norwegian movies on regular release that year.
This case builds on a total of 11 interviews with senior executives in both companies. The first interviews were conducted early in 2019 and continued on a quarterly basis until the summer of 2020. The interviews were semi-structured and centred around the expectations and experiences with the release of each of their Norwegian titles, both before and after release into each window. This helped keep the conversations specific and to allow me to highlight the strategic decisions made, in a way that general discussions on strategy could not. The timeframe allowed for discussions on every 2019 title as they passed through the different release windows.
In addition to these specific discussions, the interview-guide also contained questions on more general trends in the market and on foreign titles. Since the interviews were semi-structured, they also allowed for the conversation to include other themes that were relevant to this case and the thesis in general.
The second case builds on four interviews with the producer, cinematic distributor, and home entertainment distributor of Barn. The first interview took place shortly before the cinema premiere, and did not include the home entertainment distributor. The second interview shortly before the home entertainment release, the third about six months after the cinema premiere, and the final interview about 18 months after the cinema premiere.
Plans and perspectives
Some perspectives come across from all informants in all the companies. First of all there is a general sense that the Norwegian film industry, as a whole, matters. It is important that it continues to thrive, and informants would express hope that movies from the other distributors do well, as it would be good for the industry. All informants also clearly feel that they have an important role in the industry.
Secondly, all informants agree that making movies and getting admissions is hard. It is even harder for local movies, and it has become much harder in recent years. However, they also shared a sense of optimism on behalf of almost every project.
The cases both show a willingness to change and innovate. This is also evident from their responses to the closing of cinemas in the early stages of the pandemic (Øfsti 2020). However, this innovation is hampered by their reliance on cinemas and on NFI support. Even so, they were generally happy with the state of affairs in 2019/2020 and no one wanted major changes in policy or regulation.
Finally, all the informants stressed that having good relations to producers, cinemas and platforms is key. They all expressed willingness to compromise potential short-term revenue in exchange for long-term relations, and viewed their commitment to the industry as long term.
While the previous chapter shows that when viewed as pattern or position, there are crucial differences between SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon, they express very similar perspectives. For both companies, generating at least some profit for their owners is critical. To achieve that, they aim to make good and popular moves that reach audiences everywhere and generate revenue for their producers.
Arthaus’s perspective is to get great movies into cinemas and avoid losing money. In most of their existence, they have achieved this with a steady flow of high-quality foreign titles. Many of these have been European festival winners, but Arthaus has also had significant success as Studio Ghibli’s Norwegian distributor. Unlike the others, Arthaus is solely focused on cinema distribution, and has relied on home entertainment specialists for subsequent windows.
The previous chapter shows that SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon employ high-resource strategies and Arthaus employ low-resource strategies. However, the execution of these strategies as day-to-day plans are very similar. They all acquire movies and help finance them through minimum guarantees, release and market the movies in cinemas, and later release them to home entertainment platforms.
They all rely on cinemas to provide the main source of revenue, and they all try to improve the revenue from home entertainment markets. They all try to keep windows short enough to use attention generated at cinemas to create home entertainment revenue, but not so short that they risk affecting their relationship with the cinemas. While many alternatives are considered before the release, plans and dates for releases and windows for individual films are rarely changed once they have been set in motion.
In both cases, we also find that the companies are increasing their commitment to local films, despite the agreement that these were extremely risky investments. For Nordisk Film Distribusjon, this is the continuation of established strategy, but the company also acknowledges that local films are becoming even more important. SF Studios’ increased commitment is mainly seen through its recent purchases of Paradox and Filmkameratene, and its investment in Motion Blur. In the interviews, this is explicitly expressed as a strategy to compensate for the loss of revenue from foreign movies. Barn broke new ground for Arthaus’ as its most ambitious local title by far. However, since then Arthaus has continued its relationship with Motlys as well as releasing the critically acclaimed Norwegian documentary Gunda Kossakovsky (2020-02-25T00:00:00Z, 2020-12-10T00:00:00Z, 2021-08-19T00:00:00Z, 2021-06-17T00:00:00Z, 2021-06-11T00:00:00Z, 2021-08-21T00:00:00Z, 2021-04-16T00:00:00Z, 2021-08-27T00:00:00Z).
Despite these similarities, the level of investment remains higher from SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon, and they spent more on marketing. While Arthaus increased its marketing budget on Barn compared to its other titles, the marketing spend and investment for Arthaus is far lower than that of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon. And while festival screenings and reviews were important for some of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s movies, these were at the centre of marketing strategy for Arthaus.
There are also significant differences in how they acquire foreign titles. Arthaus has a standing principle that they do not acquire films they have not yet seen, while SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon rely on output-deals. This way SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon are guaranteed a steady supply of foreign titles, but they can also face situations where they have committed to releasing even if they realise they will be unprofitable. While Arthaus can be sure that every film on their slate is a title they can back, they have to secure a deal for each one. Sometimes this also require them to find partners in other countries and create a package to fund a shared acquisition for a larger territory.
Arthaus releases foreign titles with a very regular frequency and relies on NFI support and the occasional hit to cover losses. In the interviews, Arthaus highlighted Amazing Grace (elliot2018?) and Parasite (bong2019?) as such hits. In particular, Parasite, which did more than seven times the budgeted admissions and was a major factor in keeping Arthaus running through the pandemic.
SF Studios also gets most of its income from foreign titles, about three quarters in 2019. Almost a third of all its foreign admissions came from Joker (phillips2019?), which alone did more than SF Studios’ entire local slate. Joker and the other Warner titles represented half of SF Studios’ admissions in 2019. SF Studios’ overall performance was therefore highly dependent on Warner’s output. In 2020 SF Studios also acquired an output deal with Sony, which was previously with UIP.
For Nordisk Film Distribusjon, foreign titles are more akin to a safety net. The acquisition cost is lower, and the admissions are more predictable than with local movies. While Nordisk Film Distribusjon releases more foreign titles than local titles, it is the only company among the three that gets most of its admissions from local movies.
Nordisk Film Distribusjon expressed that because the risk involved in local movies is so high, it was important to have a certain level of local production. While this is a reasoning that is similar to the overproduction strategy presented in chapter 1. Nordisk Film Distribusjon did not argue that a single hit could save a string of misses, but rather that a string of on-budget titles could save a single miss. In a reversed dialectic of the hit and the miss, the catalogue carries the misses, instead of the hits carrying the catalogue.
The fact that Arthaus did not release Motlys and Haugerud’s 2020 title, Lyset fra sjokoladefabrikken (haugerud2020?) reveals that the company has to make considerations beyond the artistic. However, the decision not to release was made to avoid overworking their employees and not on the film’s expected performance. SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon, however, have a stronger need to balance a films artistic merit with the size of the investments and their potential returns. Their pattern of preferring relatively safe local content, as seen in the previous chapter, is confirmed as explicit plans in the interviews.
Case 1: A year with of the Norwegian high-resource distributors
In 2019 SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon released a total of 11 Norwegian movies. None of them were big hits, some of them were significant losses, a couple did as expected, and most were almost successful. The aim of this case study is to offer perspectives from these two companies at this moment in time, and to offer their reflections on what they perceived as the important issues.
The general findings are that they do feel that these are challenging times, more so than the previous decade. They find that it is more difficult to find success with local titles, that they have lost a significant source of income from the home entertainment market, and that their access to foreign titles has been reduced as well.
While they are very aware of these challenges, they also find it difficult to adapt to them, both in a short- and longer-term perspectives. While they have limited strategic latitude, they do actively look for ways to reduce risks, secure income and find ways to live in a market that perhaps has less use for the traditional Norwegian distribution company.
While Norwegian distributors are more exposed to market risk than Norwegian producers, the distributors are also chasing margins rather than hits. In the one occasion where overproduction was mentioned, it was not in the sense that a massive hit could save a string of misses, but rather that a string of on-budget titles could save one big miss.
Trying times, limited latitude
From the distributors’ perspective, three major challenges have arisen in the last few years: the loss of home entertainment revenue, the ascent of global streaming services, and a cinema market that is becoming increasingly difficult to compete in.
All of these challenges are in varying degrees tied to global changes. The most evident is the loss of DVD revenue, which is happening across the world. However, it did hit very hard in Norway because Norwegians were very quick to adapt the new all-digital formats and because the sales of DVDs were exceptionally high.
For SF Studios, which has traditionally relied on output deals with Hollywood studios, this has hit even harder as these deals are now less valuable. Hollywood studios have in varying degrees used Norwegian distribution companies as sub-distributors for both cinema and physical home entertainment releases. However, the biggest studios tend to do their digital home entertainment releases worldwide without sub-distributors. For instance, SF Studio’s output deal with Warner included cinema and physical home entertainment releases, but not TVOD and EST.
The rise of the global streaming services, and especially when tied to the major Hollywood studios, is creating a tougher market both in cinemas and at home. As Hollywood movies in cinemas are becoming even bigger, even more global and with even bigger marketing budgets, it is becoming more difficult for local movies to compete.
Acquiring foreign titles outside of output deals is also becoming more difficult as the competition has sharply increased. Previously, the Norwegian and Scandinavian distributors would largely bid against each other for Norwegian and/or Scandinavian rights. During the last few years the competition has become global players looking for global rights as not only the SVOD services are buying, but many Hollywood studios are also increasingly looking to buy finished films to limit risk. In 2019, all of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s foreign acquisitions came from output deals or other prior relations.
The appearance of transnational cinema chains in Norway during the last decade was also considered a challenge by the distributors, who felt they were more aggressively commercial and less flexible in their views on window lengths than the previous local/municipal owners. There is also a general impression that it is more difficult to release local titles now, as the digitalised cinemas are quick to replace underperforming movies that previously might have found an audience with more time and less competition.
While these challenges are apparent to the distributors, it is difficult to react to them in a significant way. Marketing budgets have decreased with the loss of home entertainment revenue, rather than increased to meet the higher Hollywood spending. With less access to foreign titles, local movies with higher risk become more important. However, they have limited control over their local slate as they are reliant on NFI decisions as well as the producers who raise the majority of the financing.
“Our dream scenario is to enter into discussions with producers and say we’re missing this, or we want that, and then be able to spend more money to develop projects because they fit our strategy. But then we’re completely dependent on NFI, and it’s impossible to know what they’ll fund. Well, almost impossible.”
Intellectual property rights generally remain with the production companies, not least because it is an NFI requirement. It is therefore not uncommon that they switch distributors from time to time, release movies with different distributors in the same year, and even franchises move between distributors. When it was offered the then upcoming Jul i Kutoppen Ashurst (2020), Nordisk Film Distribusjon found that it had a conflict with the already scheduled Dragevokterens jul (launing2020?).
“[Jul i Kutoppen] was originally ours, but we said we can’t take a film that directly competes with one we already have. (…) We probably could have taken both, but it would be bad form. They would steal admissions from each other.”
On occasions such as the scenario above, where the distributors knew early on that they would be facing competition that would hurt the box office, they have already committed their investment as the minimum guarantee deal (MG) is one of the first elements to be locked down.
“In our deal, we can’t adjust what we are going to pay for the movie. There is of course a certain understanding of what the movie will cost when the deal is made, but if the producer cuts the budget by three million, we won’t reduce our MG because of that.”
While the distributors see the need for adjusting strategies and deals with rights-holders based on the fast-changing market, the very nature of the film industry leads to slow reactions times.
“The consumer moves very fast. Faster than the technical developments on our part, faster than the distributors and the rights holders’ ability to innovate. But then again, there will always be a delay because the projects are initiated, the models established, and contracts signed long before they’re released.”
When reflecting on the level of risk involved, especially with local titles, the distributors generally viewed the risk as too high compared to the investment and the potential return, especially since the producers would get the major cut if any movie was a big hit.
Most of the Norwegian 2019 titles missed their budgets. Some of these misses were quite substantial, but most were relatively narrow. Reflecting on admissions slightly below expected, one informant said:
“So, actually, everything is as expected. We are optimists as usual, and to be honest, this should not be a surprise. (…) It’s not that the numbers are bad, but a bit more would have been nice. Like with every other film we’ve had [this year]”.
This also suggest that these distributors actually “knows something”, as opposed to the often quoted “nobody knows anything”. In one instance, two relatively comparable movies had been given the same audience estimates before being released, and both missed the estimates by almost the same amount. As an industry that chases margins rather than hits, this ability to accurately estimate admissions is vital, even if the estimates often are too optimistic. However, the distributors also expressed the notion that while this optimism often led to losses, it was actually necessary to make the industry work.
“If you have an accountant leading your company, you have a problem because you can never calculate an acceptable level of risk.”
Once projects are set in motion, there is however little flexibility, leaving little room to adjust even when the distributors realise there is trouble ahead. One example is the autumn of 2019 when there were a number of Norwegian children’s movies coming to the cinemas, in competition with a number of American titles aimed at the same target group.
“Everybody understands this will likely lead to some reduction in admissions. But we think,”let’s see the movies first, and see how they do before we make any adjustments”. It’s like we’ve talked about, the curse of this industry, that we’re always optimistic. We always look at the positive estimates. So, even if we see now that it’ll be less, we don’t make the adjustments just yet.”
Cinema remains the biggest earner for the distributors, and success or failure in the cinematic window tends to carry on to the other formats. However, in general, the informants described the cinema market as increasingly difficult.
“It is a general worry that people are going to the movies less. Sure, they spend more money when they’re there, but they’re going less. We have great traction with older audiences, but we’re struggling with younger ones. It’s a trend we see and have discussed, but little is happening to stop it.”
The distributors also felt that the increased presence of international cinema chains had a negative impact. While the chains were valuable partners that could plan effectively, they were also less flexible and more profit oriented.
“There’s no doubt that when we have more chains that it has become rougher, more profit oriented and more strictly business. At the same time, when you talk to the three or four biggest chains, then you talk to a lot of cinemas at the same time. That makes it is easier to plan things.”
While many of the low-resource distribution companies were always mainly oriented towards cinema, Nordisk Film Distribusjon and in particular SF Studios relied heavily on home entertainment income in the DVD era. Most of this came from foreign titles, but the steady stream of income gave the distributors more room to initiate local projects as well.
“The money came pouring in from home entertainment. So many projects were initiated internally based on home entertainment results, and all the taxes the DVD sales generated digitalised the cinemas in Norway. So, home entertainment has really carried the industry to where we are now.”
Corporate strategies
While they have limited strategic latitude when it comes to their slate and the release of individual movies, SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon have the ability to use their relatively large corporate structures to strategic effect. This applies both as owners of production companies and as subsidiaries of Scandinavian parent companies.
In both cases, the parent companies can be understood as being “patient”, in the sense that they have long-term commitments to the film industry and do not demand continuous and immediate profits. However, the Norwegian subsidiaries are expected to not lose money.
“There’s an understanding that this is an industry that’s super risky. But it’s clear that when we invest this much money, there’s an expectation we deliver some profit at the end.”
This expectation became more pressing when other parts of the conglomerate failed to deliver profits.
“While it doesn’t directly impact us, you feel that the pressure to deliver increases. Somebody has to cover the losses somewhere. So, from not paying that close attention, the headquarters start paying a lot of attention to the numbers. You feel the pressure.”
Being a part of a larger conglomerate also gives better access to global platforms such as iTunes and streaming services. With the exception of Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s deal with Norwegian TV2, which will be discussed later, all streaming deals were made on a Nordic level. The dialogue with iTunes was also mainly on the Nordic level, and both companies noted that local titles were given a higher priority after iTunes established an office in Stockholm. Informants from both companies describe the internal dialogue on these matters as varying from a genuine discussion to simply being informed.
“In my case, the main dialogue goes through the headquarters, so that [iTunes] has the fewest possible people to relate to. But for each local title it’s my responsibility to ensure they have the appropriate arguments. This is the same for international titles too, where there is something special in the Norwegian market – if it’s based on a book by an author that’s particularly popular here, things like that. Then you have to get those arguments through the system, and to the right places.”
Both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon have faced layoffs directed from their parent companies as a response to the falling DVD revenue. For SF Studios this process was clearly quite though (Lismoen 2017, Rushprint 2014, Berge 2013). Both companies have also tried to establish a more unified Nordic approach to both corporate structure as well as content produced. However, at least from Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s perspective, this is changing at the moment.
“I think it’s heading in the opposite direction now, towards supporting the local and the importance of being strong in each country. Optimising in each country to get a better total. (…) Five or six years ago we were very focused on releasing the same movies in all countries and creating the”Nordic blockbuster”. Which we [then] saw was very, very difficult. There are very few movies that work across the borders, and you might get it to work in two countries but lose everything in a third.”
Another key strategic development from the distributors was to acquire stakes in production companies. Both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon have bought or established Norwegian production companies. While owning production companies means investing more in each film and thus increasing risk, this also allows them to partake in all the profits of a success.
“When it works, you kind of get double profits, and when it doesn’t work you’ve probably invested more.”
Owning production companies is also a way for the distributors to partake in the series boom fuelled by the streaming services, a market where the traditional film distributor has little or no stake.
“Now that we’ve bought Paradox, look at what they’ve been doing: a series for HBO. We’re producing shows for Netflix, several shows for Viaplay.”
Finally, owning production companies is a way to secure new titles in a market where acquisition of foreign titles is becoming more difficult.
“This is a clear strategy for us. How the mix of what we’re doing is supposed to be, how we generate income. If you don’t have local, how can you compensate with foreign when there are so many others out there buying? It’s not easy; it’s a very different level of competition now.”
“Differentiating is becoming more and more important, and local content is really the only thing you can acquire that the big giants don’t have. So, we see that local content is getting more valuable in the market, and that the competition is increasing.”
Acquisition strategies
A key aspect of the Norwegian distribution companies is their inability to fully fund, and therefore to green-light, projects, and their reliance on foreign titles to secure a steady volume of titles and to balance the higher risk of local productions. For both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon, the 2019 slate was more or less typical compared to the findings in the previous chapter.
| Title | Production Company1 | NFI Support | Reported budget | Screenplay based on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amundsen | Motion Blur (49%) | NOK 15 M (Market) | NOK 75M | Historical events |
| Operasjon Mumie | Filmkameratene (50%) | N/A | Children’s book series | |
| De dødes tjern | Pryser Film | NOK 100 0002 (Artistic) | NOK 18M | Novel that was also the basis of a well-known movie with the same title from 1958 |
| Swingers | Storyline | N/A | Remake of a Latvian hit | |
| Håp | Motlys | NOK 11M (Artistic) | NOK 29M | Original story |
: Local titles released by SF Studios in 2019
| Title | Production3 company | NFI Support | Reported budget | Screenplay based on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ut og stjæle hester | 4 1/2 | NOK 12M (Artistic) | NOK 39M | Novel |
| Askeladden - I Soria Moria slott | Maipo (50.1%) | NOK 15M (Market) | NOK 60M | Sequel based on fairytales |
| Kaptein Sabeltann og Den Magiske Diamant | Qvisten | NOK 15M (Market) | NOK 38M | Franchise |
| Spionen | 4 1/2 | NOK 14M (Artistic) | NOK 14M | Historical biography |
| Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Den vesle bygda som glømte at det var jul | Fantefilm | NOK 7M (Market) | NOK 29M | Sequel based on book |
| Tunnelen | Nordisk Film Production (100%) | NOK 7M (Market) | NOK 35M | Original story |
: Local titles released by Nordisk Film Distribusjon in 2019
While both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon released about the same number of Norwegian titles, the total budget of the films distributed by Nordisk was likely twice the number for the films distributed by SF. Of the two distributors, only SF Studios released movies that had not received NFI support.
The local 2019 slate of both companies were also leaning heavily towards “known” content. They released nine of the 114 fiction films based on historical events, books, or franchises, and only two of the seven films based on original screenplays. They did not release any documentaries in 2019.
Informants confirmed that known content, and especially franchises, were considered easier to sell and predict. Franchises also created value, as new releases in cinemas boosted sales of previous instalments. However, distributors were once again hesitant to consider any aspect of the business “easy”
“It feels like, in a market that is very unstable, it feels like the least unsafe thing you can do. Even if audiences are beginning to ask for more original and different content, so we have to see if going forward there will be more original and different content. The problem is that what audiences say and what they do are often different things.”
“You have more to base it on, you can do more stuff like bundling. You can get a bigger fanbase, though it not always the case. We saw that with Karsten og Petra, at first, audiences kept growing, but when it came to the fourth film it started falling and falling. (…) It is not every movie that is like Avengers or the Fast and the Furious that just keeps growing. Most of the sequels we work with are children’s movies, and that has worked up to a certain point where it has started to fall.”
Of the four franchise films released by SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon in 2019 only Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Bygda som glømte at det var jul did well. Askeladden i Soria Moria slott and Kaptein Sabeltann og den magiske diamanten underperformed slightly, leading Nordisk Film Distribusjon to be sceptical whether they would get another sequel. 5
The inclusion of a Christmas movie in Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s lineup is, however, an example of a clear content strategy. Nordisk has released a children’s Christmas movie every year since 2015.
“Something happened when Karsten og Petras vidunderlige jul did 100,000 more than the previous Karsten and Petra film. After that it was easy to go to producers who have a brand and say that if you do a Christmas movie, you can count on about 100,000 extra admissions.”
While Nordisk Film Distribusjon could not directly order or green-light Christmas movies, all the production companies they regularly work with came up with ideas for Christmas movies. Enough of these projects have also received funding so that Nordisk believe they will have had a family-oriented Christmas movie every year to 2025 at least.
“It’s one of the more concrete things we can do. We also say that we try to have at least one national adult-oriented blockbuster, and we also want quality movies, maybe some talent building, and perhaps a comedy. (…) It’s difficult to create a strategy, especially these broad comedies that we want to make; that’s a kind of movie that never gets [NFI] support.”
One informant also expressed fear that the ongoing changes in the global film industry would force them into playing it even more safe with upcoming movies.
“Now that [Disney’s acquisition of Fox] is approved there is nothing we can do about it, but of course it makes competition harder and big films become even more important. There’s no doubt that this makes it more important to get the right movies, the ones that make money, and that there will be less focus on the more challenging movies, talent development and so on. We have to play it safer. I think that will happen across the industry. If the big ones become as big as it looks now, there will be less room.”
| Title | Acquisition type | Source | Country of origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Informer | Output deal | Warner | UK/USA |
| The Hustle | Output deal | MGM | USA |
| Legofilmen 2 | Output deal | Warner | Australia/USA |
| Second Act | Output deal | STX | USA |
| Britt-Marie var her | Sister Company | SF Studios | Sweden |
| The Mule | Output deal | Warner | USA/Canada |
| Vice | Output deal | MGM | USA |
| Cold Pursuit | Output deal | Studio Canal | Canada/France/Norway/UK/USA |
| Mia and the White Lion | Output deal | Studio Canal | South Africa/Germany/France |
| Shazam! | Output deal | Warner | USA |
| Teen Spirit | Output deal | STX | UK/USA |
| The Curse of La Llorona | Output deal | Warner | USA |
| Kule Kryp 2 | Output deal | Studio Canal | France |
| UglyDolls | Output deal | STX | Canada/China/USA |
| Godzilla: King of the Monsters | Output deal | Warner | Canada/China/Japan/Mexico/USA |
| Asterix: trylledrikkens hemmelighet | Output deal | Studio Canal | France |
| Pokémon: Detective Pikachu | Output deal | Warner | Japan/USA |
| Sauen Shaun filmen: Farmageddon | Output deal | Studio Canal | France/UK |
| Booksmart | Output deal | STX | USA |
| Annabelle Comes Home | Output deal | Warner | USA |
| Joker | Output deal | Warner | Canada/USA |
| It: Chapter Two | Output deal | Warner | USA |
| Blinky Bill Filmen | Output deal | Studio Canal | Australia |
| Doctor Sleep | Output deal | Warner | USA |
| Familien Addams | Output deal | Studio Canal | Canada/USA |
| Hustlers | Output deal | STX | USA |
| Black and Blue | Output deal | Sony | USA |
| Blinded by the light | Output deal | Warner | UK |
| Countdown | Output deal | STX | USA |
| Western Stars | Output deal | Warner | USA |
| Title | Acquisition Type | Source | Country of origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| The House That Jack Built | Sister company | Nordisk Film Distribution | Denmark/France/Sweden/Germany |
| Hunter Killer | Output deal | Lionsgate | China/UK/USA |
| Green Book | Output deal | Lionsgate | USA |
| After | Stand alone deal | Voltage | USA |
| On the Basis of Sex | Output deal | Lionsgate | USA |
| John Wick: Chapter 3 | Output deal | Lionsgate | USA |
| Long Shot | Output deal | Lionsgate | USA |
| Midsommar | Sister company | Nordisk Film | USA/Sweden |
| Lords of Chaos | Local co-producer | 4 1/2 | UK/Sweden |
| Rutete Ninja | Sister company | Nordisk Film Distribution | Denmark |
| Angel Has Fallen | Output deal, | Lionsgate | USA |
| Journal 64 | Sister company | Nordisk Film Distribution | Denmark/Germany |
| Quick | Sister company | Nordisk Film | Sweden |
| Knives Out | Output deal | Lionsgate | USA |
: Foreign titles releases by Nordisk Film Distribusjon in 2019
With 30 foreign titles, SF Studios had just over twice as many foreign titles as Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s 14. SF Studios’ slate was also more successful, generating almost 1.5M admissions compared to just under 600,000 for Nordisk Film Distribusjon.
The foreign slates of both companies were dominated by films acquired through output deals, and together the companies only released one title acquired outside of output deals or existing company relations. Both companies had most titles from the USA, but the StudioCanal deal gave SF Studios several European titles and Nordisk Film Distribusjon acquired several Scandinavian titles from their sister companies. SF Studios only had one Scandinavian title acquired from their sister companies.
Titles from other companies within the conglomerate are the cheapest acquisitions, as there is generally only a revenue share agreement and no minimum guarantee. However, releasing any title is still costly.
“It costs money to get a movie in cinemas. There are release costs, there’s marketing. (…) And there’s also the question of capacity, both internally and in cinemas. You spend capacity that will affect other titles.”
With titles from the Hollywood output deals, marketing costs are often covered by the studio. However, they can still become too expensive. Distribution rights are still paid for on a per film basis, and sometimes movies do not go as well as expected.
“You know, Hollywood movies always seem very big. They’re very good at packaging – things look very good when they first present them. And sometimes that candy is not as sweet as it was made to look. (…) We commit to a sum at a very early point, so it is difficult.”
For Nordisk Film Distribusjon, foreign titles were mainly a way of keeping the lights on. While not without risk, foreign titles are a much more predictable source of income than local titles.
“I would love to say that [foreign titles] are steady earners, but it does vary a lot. Some of our deals are quite expensive. However, when a foreign title does well, it is great for business. While there are a lot of fixed costs, the risk is also a lot lower. (…) Norwegian movies are our first priority, it’s what we spend the most time and money on. But we have to have a Hollywood deal as well to make ends meet. Otherwise, the deviations, the variations in the market become too big. The revenue line from the foreign movies is a bit straighter than the local one.”
Releasing foreign titles, especially big studio movies, is also a learning opportunity. These titles have plans and marketing already prepared when the Norwegian distributors bring them to market.
“We get plans for big movies from our Hollywood partners, and we learn a lot from it. We learn how they do things differently, how they think. They are really good at thinking big about everything. Which is inspirational – we’re going to get even better at it.”
In total, the 2019 slates of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon were typical of the findings from the previous chapter and in line with their overall strategies of the last decade or so. While both companies invest in high budget local movies, Nordisk Film Distribusjon invest the most, and while both companies rely on foreign titles and output deals, SF Studios has bigger deals and more titles.
Cinema release strategies
| Title | Release date | Admissions | 2019 Rank | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amundsen | February 15 | 209,458 | 13 | Below expectations |
| Operasjon Mumie | October 18 | 101,633 | 31 | Below expectations |
| De dødes tjern | November 1 | 17,650 | 96 | Below expectations |
| Swingers | October 10 | 10,096 | 128 | Below expectations |
| Håp | November 22 | 46,684 | 61 | As expected |
| Title | Release date | Admissions | 2019 Rank | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ut og stjæle hester | March 8 | 105,680 | 29 | As expected |
| Askeladden - I Soria Moria slott | August 23 | 261,384 | 8 | Below expectations |
| Kaptein Sabeltann og Den Magiske Diamant | September 27 | 257,241 | 9 | Below expectations |
| Spionen | October 18 | 81,563 | 40 | Below expectations |
| Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Den vesle bygda som glømte at det var jul | November 8 | 421,017 | 4 | As expected |
| Tunnelen | December 25 | 221,351 | 39 | Slightly below expectations |
: Cinema performance of Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s local releases in 2019
2019 was not a particularly good year for Norwegian movies, or for Norwegian cinemas in general. Norwegian titles did 2M admissions out a total of 11.3M, giving a market share of 18.4%. The average of the last decade was 2.6M, 11.8M and 21.9% respectively. A total 257 new titles had regular releases in Norwegian cinemas in 2019.
The slightly disappointing result for the industry as a total is also reflected in the results by SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s Norwegian slate. The only release that was a clear profit maker was Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Den vesle bygda som glømte at det var jul. While Ut å stjæle hester also did as expected in Norwegian cinemas, it did not do as well internationally as hoped and likely faced a loss. One informant expressed a general disappointment in the 2019 slate:
“I think [the other distributors] also have the same feeling, that things didn’t work out like they’d hoped. I don’t think there were any local films this autumn that delivered what was hoped for, or needed. And I’m afraid that this is a general trend.”
All of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s 2019 local acquisitions had a cinema release prior to home entertainment release. While NFI has stated that they are awaiting the first Norwegian fiction film to have a digital release as its first window, the distributors did not see this as a viable option. Not only is 60% of the income generated from the cinema box office, but the ex post support is also dependent on reaching a threshold of cinema admissions.
While the ex post support is paid directly to producers, and not to distributors, it is a crucial part of the financing for any Norwegian movie. According to one informant, the cinema release is also the focus of most producers and creatives involved in making the movies.
“If we have a local title, it is going to be in cinemas. The rights holders don’t necessarily care that much about the next windows – the cinemas are the important showcase. They want to make a deal with somebody who will give them cinema distribution.”
However, one informant was open to the idea that some titles could be better served with alternative release strategies, if the economics allowed it.
“It is very important for producers to get the film in cinemas, but as we’ve said many times, there’s no basic right to cinematic distribution. There are about 260 titles each year, and that’s already way too many. I’m convinced a lot of that should be event screenings and other special events, or go straight to some kind of platform.”
The local 2019 release schedules of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon were also typical. Both companies released one title each in the spring, and the rest at the end of summer and throughout autumn. Summer, and the last part of spring, is generally avoided for local movies because the weather is nice.
“That’s what we call the”dead period”. The sun is out; it’s exam time; clothes are coming off, so to speak; people are focusing on other things. (…) We’re a simple kind of people in that regard – if the weather is good, we’re outside. If it’s bad, we go to the cinema – unless it’s too bad; then we stay at home.”
Great weather also impacted the release of Askeladden i Soria Moria slott and Kaptein Sabeltann og den magiske diamanten. The opening weekend of Askeladden i Soria Moria Slott had great weather, while Kaptein Sabeltann og den magiske diamanten was struck by a period of uncharacteristically warm weather after the opening.
“I’m not saying that the biggest problem with the climate crisis is that our films are in trouble, but it does affect how we release movies. The last weekend of August used to be a great date for us; now we’re not sure anymore. (…) Suddenly we sit around being afraid of the warm weather for a film released in October. The period we consider great for releases is getting smaller and smaller, and that is a challenge.”
Askeladden i Soria Moria slott did well after the disappointing opening weekend, but it still came in below target.
“Askeladden did pretty well after the opening weekend – it had a 15-20% drop, which is low. (…) But the problem is that if you open too low, you’re never going to get it back. So, the numbers are good based on the opening, but we’re missing 100,000. (…) It’s a pretty crazy business we are in. We spend years and millions of kroner to make a movie, and if the weather is nice on opening weekend, it doesn’t work. It’s pretty brutal.”
Even with the release of Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Den vesle bygda som glømte at det var jul, there was some concern about the weather. While Nordisk Film Distribusjon was hoping for a thin layer of snow to set the Christmas mood, too much snow would not be good either.
“You can have a thin layer of snow, but not enough to go sledding or skiing. You don’t want snow that can actually be used for anything.”
For Nordisk Film Distribusjon, the release of family Christmas movies has also been a way to claim one of the two best weekends of the year. The first weekend of November each year is “Day of the Cinema” and tickets are half-price; Nordisk generally tries to have its Christmas movie ready for previews on this weekend and then open the following weekend. The company has also claimed December 25 every year since 2016, and in 2019 released the moderately successful Tunnelen on this date.
“Christmas is great. You have daytime screenings that work, and there are a lot of days off.”
In 2020 Nordisk Film Distribusjon had planned on releasing Kampen om Narvik (skjoldbjaerg2022?) on December 25. The movie was originally set for a February 2021 date, but the shooting schedule had been re-arranged to be able to make the earlier date. In the end, Kampen om Narvik became severely delayed. The December 25, 2020, date was abandoned when the production hit delays because of COVID-19-restrictions. Nordisk Film Distribusjon instead released Den største forbrytelsen (svensson2020?) on that date, despite severely limited cinema capacity. Kampen om Narvik was rescheduled to December 25, 2021, but a new lockdown in Oslo limited cinema capacity again and the release was delayed until March 18. However, as Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, Kampen om Narvik was once again delayed. At the time of writing, it is again scheduled for December 25, now in 2022.
Speaking prior to all these delays, Nordisk Film Distribusjon did not imagine going for the December 25 date beyond 2020 to avoid conflict with the Avatar (cameron2009?) sequels originally planned for release in December 2021 and onwards. In the end they have had to brave a release just nine days after Avatar: The Way of Water (cameron2022?).
“We talked about it. Do we believe the hype is gone? But no, it’s going to be huge again, so going up against it would be super risky”
In the case of Spionen, Nordisk Film Distribusjon chose to move the premiere date from its scheduled September 20 date. This was partially to have more time to finish the film, but mainly to avoid Downton Abbey (engler2019?) which later came in as a September 13 release.
“If we had pushed, we would have met the [original] date. But it was mainly because of Downton Abbey, which was slated the week [before] us. We saw pictures and heard reviews from England, and we saw from the test screenings that it worked very well with adult women (…) which was also the audience we were aiming for. And Hollywood almost never moves when they’ve set a date, so it was up to us to find another.”
With the new date, Spionen was released on the same day as SF Studios’ Operasjon Mumie. While Norwegian distributors generally avoid releasing local titles on the same day, Nordisk Film Distribusjon found this particular clash unproblematic.
“There is a gentleman’s agreement that you don’t release on the same date, but when the target audiences are this different, it’s not a challenge. (…) Of course, one challenge is that we’re already struggling to get PR for our films, so if we were to have press days at the same time, that would be a problem. So, we coordinate it so that there’s no conflict there, [and we have] different press days and premiere events.”
A major challenge for both distributors was the “pileup” of children’s movies in the autumn of 2019. Nordisk released three, SF released one, and there were also three titles from Disney and several others. Nordisk admitted that they were obviously a part of the problem, and that they had discussed moving some of the children’s movies to the following year.
“We went into discussions with all the producers to see if we could move to next year, to make more room. It didn’t happen, and we probably should have, but there’s that optimism again.”We’ll find room, it will work out.” (…) [The producers] often have very high loan costs, and there’s the momentum of having finished a movie and just having it lying around for six months or a year. I understand that it is difficult.”
Both SF Studios’ Håp and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s Ut å stjæle hester had their world premiere at international festivals. Ut å stjæle hester premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival February 9, was then screened at the Norwegian festival Kosmorama March 5, before the regular premiere March 8. For Håp, SF Studios chose a longer gap from the premiere at Toronto International Film Festival at September 7 to the Norwegian premiere at November 22, probably to get a release closer to Christmas as the movie takes place during the holidays.
All the 2019 local movies released by SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon opened wide, with some previews the only exception. As discussed in the previous chapter, almost all movies in Norway open as wide as possible, which after the digitalisation of cinemas generally means that no cinemas are added after opening week.
“We do event screenings, early screenings where the director hosts an in-person introduction, and things like that. But we rarely open in the big cities and then wider after. I don’t think that has happened at all, actually.”
While the distributors are discussing alternative release strategies, implementing such strategies require the cooperation of cinemas. Who until now have generally required national premieres if they were to screen a title at all.
“We talk about it, and it could probably be a good idea, to get word-of-mouth going and find out if this is something for the smaller cities. I know that some of the smaller cities are starting to wait a bit, actually, and see how it opens before they decide to take a movie or not. But then again, distributors and cinemas are always positive and think that the movie will be bigger. And I also guess that it was a bigger problem earlier, where the cinemas weren’t used to getting premieres. That was very important for them, after spending so much money on digitalisation, to at least get premieres. Now they are starting to see that some movies need time to establish themselves, but most go wide at once.”
From the distributor perspective, the cinemas are also too quick to abandon underperforming titles and are too willing to give new titles many screens.
“Everyone in this business is slightly too optimistic, and that includes the cinemas. And they are generally optimists on behalf of the premieres. New films tend to get too much capacity, not always, but often too much compared to an older film that could have gone better. Simply because you don’t know how well it will go, and you want the capacity in case people show up. I discuss this a lot with the cinemas – I think that since we became digital, they can spend more time adjusting the programming. (…) Adjust during the weekend when the business is happening. It’s useless to wait until next Thursday.”
When a film is finally released, the distributors rarely make significant changes to the strategy. In 2019, all home entertainment release dates were set well before the cinema premiere and none changed. There was some room to adjust the marketing, but mainly to reduce it when a film failed completely.
“We do an assessment on the Monday, or more likely during the opening weekend, on how the marketing campaign is going. Digitally, we adjust all the time as we see what material works and what doesn’t, but we tend to stay with the original budget. Of course, if it falls completely flat we might cut it and not run advertisements for the second weekend, but that very rarely happens with Norwegian movies”.
When Ut å stjæle hester opened better than expected, Nordisk Film Distribusjon did not increase the spend. However, the company did attempt to leverage the film’s popularity among older audiences.
“There was no room to increase the media spend or anything like that. If anything, we could have reduced the spend as it was already doing well. But we had a lot of upcoming events, and worked with the cinemas to get them to do senior screenings, particularly. They went very well – many cinemas had to cut the danishes in half to get enough for everybody. (…) We also did some ads where we got permission to use quotes from regular people’s Facebook posts.”
Digital ads and social media platforms are a large part of the marketing spend, but for the bigger projects, traditional media still has the largest part of the marketing spend.
“It varies, but on a smaller movie it could be 60-70% digital. On a bigger movie like Askeladden we have an outdoors campaign, we have TV ads, so it could be 20-30% digital.
Other marketing efforts such as product placements and third-party marketing campaigns are initially the responsibility of the production company. However, when it comes to the actual marketing campaigns, the distributor usually comes in to coordinate. With Kaptein Sabeltann og den magiske diamant, a brand of soap, Lano, was a major contributor to the television spend.
“Previously, we would have thought that we could have reduced our marketing budget, since Lano spent a lot on television ads. Now we don’t cut the budget anymore, just because we are desperate to get the opening weekend as big as possible. Instead, we coordinate theirs and ours TV campaigns to cover more ground.”
With December 25 releases, such as Tunellen, ad spending has to be adjusted compared to a traditional marketing campaign. The trailer for Tunellen first premiered on the TV2 news on Saturday, October 26. However, before Christmas both advertising costs and consumer attention come at a premium, so Nordisk Film Distribusjon chose to start the marketing push late and concentrate the spend close to the premiere.
“We’ve been lying low because we want it to appear big and blow it up close to the launch. (…) There will be some ads before Christmas, but we’re going heavy in the week after, when it’s also cheaper to buy media.
With the exception of Spionen, Nordisk Film Distribusjon was awarded the maximum marketing support by NFI for all of its 2019 titles. SF Studios got the maximum amount for Amundsen. The total marketing spend for these titles, especially Amundsen, Kaptein Sabeltann og den magiske diamant and Askeladden – I Soria Moria slott which had campaigns financed by third parties , might therefore be considerably higher than the minimums listed in Table 6.
Both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon conduct awareness tracking of local titles, which is something the other local distributors don’t have the resources for. However, while increased marketing spend gives higher awareness, both distributors stressed that successfully marketing a movie was not only a question about getting people inside the cinemas. The film also has to deliver on the audience expectations that the marketing has created. With Tunellen, Nordisk Film Distribusjon was worried that audiences were expecting a disaster movie in the vein of their previous successes Bølgen (uthaug2015?) and Skjelvet (andersen2018?).
“We’ve been trying to avoid the disaster movie genre tag. While it’s nice that Skjelvet and Bølgen get a mention in the press we’re getting, [Tunellen] isn’t a spectacular film like they were. It’s a more claustrophobic drama, and it’s important that people don’t go in expecting extraordinary spectacle.”
Reflecting on the disappointing cinema results for Amundsen, SF Studios felt that the message from marketing might have been one of the reasons.
“Maybe we were not honest enough in the trailers and communication that this is a biographical movie, and not an action film mainly about the race to the South Pole. (…) The movie is great, great story, great directing, but people don’t get what they are expecting.”
| Norwegian title | Premiere | Admissions | 2019 Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Mule | January 11 | 13,223 | 109 |
| Second Act | January 18 | 10,770 | 123 |
| The Informer | January 18 | 5,961 | 170 |
| Vice | February 1 | 13,889 | 105 |
| Mia and the White Lion | February 8 | 12,227 | 116 |
| Legofilmen 2 | February 15 | 93,743 | 35 |
| Cold Pursuit | March 1 | 16,568 | 98 |
| Kule Kryp 2 | March 8 | 23,109 | 82 |
| Britt-Marie var her | March 22 | 10,550 | 126 |
| Shazam! | April 5 | 69,717 | 43 |
| Asterix: trylledrikkens hemmelighet | April 12 | 42,257 | 59 |
| Teen Spirit | April 26 | 1,954 | 252 |
| The Curse of La Llorona | May 3 | 21,334 | 87 |
| The Hustle | May 10 | 22,648 | 84 |
| Pokémon: Detective Pikachu | May 10 | 141,155 | 23 |
| UglyDolls | May 24 | 13,152 | 111 |
| Godzilla: King of the Monsters | May 31 | 36,340 | 68 |
| Booksmart | June 21 | 9,070 | 135 |
| Annabelle Comes Home | June 26 | 95,916 | 33 |
| Blinky Bill Filmen | July 5 | 10,039 | 130 |
| It: Chapter Two | September 9 | 151,604 | 21 |
| Blinded by the light | September 27 | 3,031 | 221 |
| Joker | October 4 | 452,807 | 3 |
| Hustlers | October 25 | 29,670 | 75 |
| Familien Addams | November 1 | 51,148 | 51 |
| Doctor Sleep | November 15 | 18,426 | 94 |
| Sauen Shaun filmen: Farmageddon | November 22 | 41,360 | 71 |
| Black and Blue | November 29 | 1,393 | 295 |
| Western Stars | November 29 | 1,563 | 280 |
| Countdown | December 25 | 27,093 | 127 |
| Title | Premiere date | Admissions | 2019 Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hunter Killer | January 4 | 16,417 | 103 |
| The House That Jack Built | January 25 | 4,180 | 217 |
| Green Book | February 1 | 118,572 | 26 |
| Lords of Chaos | March 22 | 3,633 | 214 |
| On the Basis of Sex | April 5 | 7,949 | 149 |
| After | April 12 | 51,213 | 49 |
| Journal 64 | April 12 | 6,858 | 162 |
| Long Shot | May 3 | 17,045 | 97 |
| Rutete Ninja | May 25 | 147,346 | 22 |
| John Wick: Chapter 3 | May 31 | 89,175 | 37 |
| Midsommar | July 26 | 18,228 | 95 |
| Angel Has Fallen | August 30 | 33,227 | 70 |
| Quick | September 27 | 5,614 | 174 |
| Knives Out | December 6 | 71,187 | 53 |
: Cinema performance of Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s foreign releases in 2019
In contrast with their local slate, Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s foreign releases leaned heavily towards spring, only two foreign titles were released in the competitive autumn months.
SF Studios’ foreign releases followed the general pattern of foreign releases found in chapter four. Foreign movies were released quite evenly throughout the year, with the exception of a dip in July and August and a spike in November. The Warner movies generated 1.1M admissions of a total of approximately 1.5M admission on SF Studios’ foreign titles.
Both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon also released a number of foreign titles directly to the home entertainment market. In 2019 SF Studios registered 120 VOD titles for the Norwegian home entertainment market in Videogramregisteret and Nordisk Film Distribusjon registered 85 titles. In at least one case, a foreign movie was released in cinemas largely to gain value in the home entertainment markets.
“There are some films that [the cinema division] doesn’t want to release, where we see potential in later windows.”What does the cinematic release cost, can we break even?” (…) [Title] did just about break even in cinemas, and now it is doing great on digital platforms. (…) You have to take a wider perspective and see the whole calculation, and I think that is the best partner a producer can have, even if they largely live in the cinema world.”
Home entertainment release strategies
For a home entertainment release the major strategic decisions are when to release the title in the different formats followed by choosing a price point. While it is important to achieve prominence on the platforms, the distributors had limited means of achieving this, as most platforms did accept paid placement of titles.
Both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon handled the home entertainment market internally and had people dedicated to it, as opposed to the low-resource distributors who tended to either use a sub-distributor or have the same people juggle home entertainment and cinema releases.
For local movies, the home entertainment market was much smaller than the cinema market, both in terms of value and in terms of absolute audience numbers. The smaller returns result in smaller marketing campaigns and leaves the local titles disadvantaged with the major platforms where the sheer number of titles is huge.
Working with the various local platforms also has its challenges. These are generally run by companies that have traditionally not been a part of the film industry, but are cable providers, electricity companies and internet providers. The lack of film background is not perceived by the informants as a problem in itself, as they can work closely with the platforms. However, the bigger challenge is that film dissemination is a small piece of what these companies do compared to their main businesses.
“It’s not a challenge that they, in general, don’t have a film background because the important thing is to see what is commercial, and what is right for the audiences and make sure there is a variation. We do spend a lot of time working with them and give them input on having the right mix and not just the obvious number one hits because that doesn’t show the breadth of the service. (…) It’s probably a bigger challenge that film is a very small part of their business, compared to TV channels and set-top boxes and internet service. (…) The development of software and hardware is also generally slow, so changes in the market take a long time to be absorbed into the organisations.”
The informants largely felt that the digital home entertainment market was still developing rapidly, and they were actively endeavouring to make it more profitable.
“We want to build an EST market for the future. To get people to start buying and collecting movies.”
While EST was their best hope for replacing lost home entertainment revenue, it was still not generating enough.
“We’ve put great resources towards EST and made campaigns for EST. We see that it works. It just doesn’t work enough”.
One informant felt that they did not prioritise home entertainment enough, and that it should be a part of the strategy from the first talks with the producers.
“It’s very important that the producers don’t just talk to the cinema people about contracts and possibilities and rights if they don’t have the complete picture.”
Window length
From 2008 to 20186 SF Studios tended to have slightly shorter cinematic windows than Nordisk Film Distribusjon, and that both distributors had shorter windows than the other local distributors. While no such pattern is evident from the 2019 releases7, both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon expressed that it was important to keep the windows relatively short. However, when it came down to each individual film, many practical concerns shaped the decision on the final date.
The main reason for pushing for shorter windows is to keep attention on the cinematic release, especially as the revenue from home entertainment has dwindled.
“The big difference is that I have less to spend. When you released a movie, and it did 20 million kroner, and now it does 2 million kroner, it says something about how much you can spend. (…) So we work a lot on getting attention to the cinema release, where we have a bigger spend and create a lot of attention. Which lasts for a while, and then it will naturally fall because so much else is coming, and there will always be a window, but I try to shorten it if I can.”
The length of a cinematic window is decided by the distributor on a title by title basis. There are no general agreements or regulations that enforce window length, but distributors are mindful that cinemas have certain expectations.
“It is always an internal discussion (…) on each title. How long or short windows do we operate with. What is strategic, for both [home entertainment and cinema]? When are we stepping on the toes of the cinemas, when are we not? When are we stepping slightly on their toes, but the pain will pass quickly? And you’re always looking if there is anything special happening – holidays, other events, competing movies.”
While the distributors do not have discussions directly with the cinemas about window length, they must reach agreements with producers, who often are more concerned about cinemas than the distributors are. At least in SF Studios’ case the standard contracts specify a four-month cinematic window, which means that in with the exception of De dødes tjern all the contracts had to be renegotiated before home entertainment release. Swingers had the shortest cinematic window of all the SF titles of 2019, and the producer was initially hesitant to such a short window of only 73 days.
“My argument was revenue. The producer’s argument was to be considerate of the cinemas, afraid to step on their toes and cause harm to the most important revenue stream. (…) I respect the cinema window, and we don’t want to step on their toes — too much. But you also have to push it a bit. They should not be able to dictate to us when we see that it’s not in the best interests of the project.”
Neither SF Studios nor Nordisk Film Distribusjon adjusted their cinema windows based on performance in cinemas. In each case, the home entertainment releases were planned before the cinema premiere, and the dates were not changed.
The cinematic windows of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon were flexible, SF ranged from 73 to 143 days and Nordisk, not counting the Christmas movie Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Den vesle bygda som glømte at det var jul, ranged from 87 to 115 days. However, they were also somewhat conservative. Only Swingers and De Dødes Tjern, both movies that performed well under expectations, had genuine “dark windows” where they did not play in any cinemas at all. However, all titles reached more than 97% of their cinematic admission before EST, and all non-children’s movies reached close to or above 99%.
Except for Swingers and Operasjon Mumie, SF Studios expressed that they would have wanted earlier home entertainment releases than they achieved. Amundsen was released slightly late to accommodate a campaign on the physical release and also to avoid the releasing in May which is considered a poor month also for home entertainment releases, while June is considered quite good. Håp was released slightly late at the producer’s request to accommodate festival participation, and De dødes tjern was also released late because of a cinematic release in Denmark. However, since it was already a late release SF Studios opted to wait until Easter to release it as Easter in Norway is associated with crime, thrillers, murder and to a lesser extent horror.
The ideal dates for home entertainment releases generally overlap the ideal dates for cinema releases. The “dead period” of April/May apply in both cases, and Christmas releases are ideal at home as well. However, where few titles are released in cinemas in June, it is considered a good period for home entertainment and saw the release of both Amundsen and Ut og stjæle hester. The week before Christmas saw three releases from SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon, Askeladden i Soria Moria slott, Kaptein Sabeltann og den magiske diamant and Swingers. However, while Christmas is a good period, the first half of December is generally avoided now.
“It is pretty interesting how that has changed. Earlier, it was extremely important to release the physical product in time for Christmas, so you had to release in the middle of November to get the Christmas sales. Now, there’s no point in releasing anything before December 25. People don’t have time, and it’s not a gift anymore. It’s almost a bad period to release a physical product before Christmas, since people don’t have the time.”
The variations in Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s windows are also mainly explained by seasonal considerations. Askeladden i Soria Moria slott and Kaptein Sabeltann og den magiske diamant were released close together right before Christmas, which is considered a good period, as opposed to November/the first half of December, which Nordisk considered a bad period, as movies are no longer gifts and the period is very busy. Ut og stjæle hester was released in June, Spionen was released in time for the winter holidays, and Tunellen released in time for Easter. Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Den vesle bygda som glømte at det var jul was released in time for Christmas in 2020.
None of the informants wanted any kind of fixed window arrangement similar to those found in Sweden and Denmark. However, there was a shared impression that it would be better for the movies if they could shorten the windows somewhat without negative reactions from the cinemas. The shortest window any informant proposed as ideal for a specific title was seven weeks, close to the 45 days that was the shortest cinematic window on record at the time of speaking.
“[On foreign titles] we are very much affected by the mandatory windows of 120 days in Sweden and 122 in Denmark. If all the Nordic countries have the same release date, then they often want the same home entertainment date. Which means we wait for four months and lose a lot of attention from the cinema release. When I get to decide, I try to shorten that window as much as possible, until it is the right length. That could be as short as eight weeks.”
One informant also suggested that shorter windows could benefit the cinemas as well:
“We have seen that movies that still are in theatres get a boost when they are released to home entertainment. The cinemas don’t like it, but there is no reason to take it down if it is still selling tickets. And it’s the power of social media, when people write,”saw [children’s movie], fun for the whole family,” they don’t say where they saw it, in what window. So, it might as well promote cinema.”
One informant, however, related that cinemas had also reacted negatively to the practice of selling pre-orders.
“What pre-order does is that it gives you some indications [on how sales will go], both physical and digital. The volume is low, people generally wait until it is available. (…) The visibility is good, and I think that it should be good for cinemas as well. But there are many cinemas that very negative about it. They imagine that you put in an order and just sit there waiting until it arrives. I don’t believe that’s a real threat. But then there are many cinemas that believe that there should be a four-month window and demand it. To me, that’s backwards, and it contributes to giving us fewer new titles.”
Ultimately, decisions about the length of cinematic windows are a matter of negotiation with the producers, and a number of factors and experiences are taken into account.
“In the end, it is about money. There is no answer with double lines under; it’s gut feeling, it’s experience, it’s analysis. What did we do on previous titles, how did they perform? And there are always things that are different, how is the competition? (…) There are many factors at play, but in the end it is a question of what we and the producer think will generate the most money.”
With digital home entertainment market, there is also less transparency about release dates than with physical formats, when release dates were printed in industry magazines.
“There is no systematic way to know about these dates. Sometimes you see iTunes publishing a date, sometimes you pick up rumours. (…) We had a better overview when the physical releases dominated.”
With the exception of Operasjon Mumie, all of SF Studios’ and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s local 2019 titles were released on EST before physical or TVOD. This was mainly because iTunes considers EST only titles to be in “early release” and give them higher prominence. This is not a strategy that the local distributors are particularly fond of, and one informant clearly stated that the important thing was to get “big money” from sales, whether they were from EST or physical, before “small money” from rentals.
“In my world, EST and physical releases are practically the same, so if I made the decision alone, they would have the same date. I have done so several times, regardless of iTunes. Sometimes it’s about practicalities, sometimes about production and logistics and campaigns. But there is a risk.”
The EST exclusive window for the other titles varied from seven to 35 days. The lengths of the different home entertainment windows were adapted to the target audiences, and their expected willingness to pay for an EST title. Children’s movies had the longest EST windows, as these films are viewed repeatedly.
“Target groups and their willingness to pay plays a role. On De dødes tjern, I’ll likely have a two-week window from EST to TVOD, and physical is likely to come at the same time as TVOD. For Operasjon Mumie, I’ll probably keep a longer [EST] window. More people are likely to buy it, since renting it many times will be expensive. With De dødes tjern the target group is young, and they are less willing to pay, so it’s likely that TVOD has the bigger share.”
All SF Studios’ and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s 2019 titles had a physical release, and all were released on Blu-ray. The distributors say they are still trying to get physical releases for all their titles, but that the end of physical releases is coming soon. One informant said that they really felt the end of physical releases getting very close.
“I’m not sure how honest we can be about it, but it was very uncertain if at least two of our [Norwegian] titles would get a physical release, simply based on the economics of it. But we found models and partners that ensured we could do it. (…) We go to great lengths to make it work. Because when we stop, then it is truly the beginning of the end. But you have to at least be able to make break-even.”
While all of the 2019 titles got a Blu-ray release, both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon did DVD only releases in 2018. Blu-ray releases are a lot more expensive due to higher production costs and fees to Sony, so DVD only releases are not uncommon.
However, Swingers was a rare example of a movie released only on Blu-ray and not as a DVD. SF Studios decided to use the film as a low-risk opportunity to test an alternative strategy.
“If I had done what I usually do, I would only have released a DVD. But I found out that the pre-orders for Blu-rays were higher than DVDs, and since I couldn’t afford two formats, I decided to go for Blu-ray even if it is the more expensive format. (…) This is a movie that has a young target group, and they generally don’t buy physical releases, they are more digital. So perhaps the better, more expensive format would work better for older audiences that care less about price and more about quality. So, it’s a cool thing to try. The physical sales are not going to change much either way.”
With titles that were expected to be large, physical campaigns were sometimes planned and sold before the cinema premiere. Which meant that chains and/or wholesalers participated in the risk to a larger extent. If the movie did better than expected the wholesaler would have gotten a better deal, and if it did less than expected the distributor might still do well even if relatively few physical copies are sold to consumers. For SF Studios, this saved some home entertainment revenue from both Amundsen and Operasjon Mumie.
While this means that for some titles the sale of physical copies can help shift the risk onto more partners, one informant considered the move towards digital home entertainment markets to be risk reducing overall.
“I don’t have stock, I don’t have same production issues, there is less chance of delays. I’ve lost truckloads of movies that made me abandon campaigns, or there is a strike in Europe, or you get the goods but half the boxes are broken. We have new challenges, but overall the risk is a lot lower digitally.”
The transition to digital formats had not, however, reduced the workload significantly.
“We still do a lot of the same tasks. You need metadata, you need a cover – in many variations. And with a lot of the things we don’t do any longer, the extra costs were services we paid for. So, it’s largely the same workload, but the big difference is the number of customers you have relations to. With 10 customers, I reach the entire globe, or at least the Nordic countries. It used to be that we were in direct contact with as many as 1,500-2,000 customers.”Meat, game and video”, that kind of places.”
Prominence and performance
When measuring or predicting the performance of a home entertainment release, the distributors use conversion rate, simply put the number of home entertainment transactions divided by the number of cinema admissions. In the DVD-era these could sometimes run as high as 50%, in other words a movie that sold 100,000 tickets would also sell 50,000 DVDs. However, in the current market, conversion-rates are much lower.
“In general, the conversion rate has fallen. When the DVD-market was at its peak, it could easily be 25-30%, now 10% is more common. (…) But it’s a lot more difficult to calculate conversion rates now, compared to when there were physical media. So, we probably don’t have the right conversion rates any longer. Perhaps, when all revenue streams are calculated, it could be as high as 20% or 25%.”
Conversion rates also vary strongly from title to title and genre to genre. While horror-movies used to one of the main staples of the video-stores, it is no longer a strong home entertainment genre, and horror movies generally have poor conversion rates. However, other classic video-genres such as action movies, light comedies, and World War II movies still to do very well on home entertainment.
“I have to admit that for some reason helicopters, guns, and Nazis still work very well. And people find Norwegian war history very exciting.”
Children’s movies have also typically performed well in the home market, delivering strong EST numbers and therefore higher revenue per transaction. However, an informant felt that the stronger competition in the cinema window was also taking its toll in the home markets.
“It is a challenge, unless you’re Pixar or Disney or something like that, it’s no walk in the park anymore. It was often a success earlier, but it’s much more demanding now.”
Compared to other genres, children’s movies tend to live a very long time on the platforms and over time get a lot of visibility.
“We see that they get a long tail. They live for a very, very long time and sell regularly, even if they don’t peak as high in the first week as Tunnelen or other big productions.”
While the distributors have awareness tracking on cinema releases, they do not have similar tools for home entertainment releases. They have no systematic tracking of the prominence of their home entertainment releases, but rely on market panels. In most cases, however, the platforms will inform the distributors on the level of prominence they can expect. While the distributor will try to achieve as much prominence as possible, it’s a bit of a one-way process.
“It’s not so much a negotiation as it is a proposal. With some players, you have to convince them that this is a good title that deserves high prominence.”
While some platforms might accept paid positions, in most cases the level of prominence any given title gets is decided by the platform. However, the local distributors get the sense that the bigger wallets of the international studios do come into play, simply by being able to create huge demand internationally.
“You can affect [prominence] with the general marketing push. The more you invest yourself, the easier it is for [the platforms] to keep the prominence up. But that makes it difficult for us. With someone like Sony and a movie like Angry Birds, they can say that in all these territories we’ll be using this much money. That makes it easy [for the platforms] to press the button and push it in all territories.
With the local platforms, the distributors have room to affect the visibility of their movies by promising to spend more money on marketing, sometimes directly with the platforms.
“At the more local level we can say,”we will be putting this much into marketing, will you match it?“. Then I’ll put my money with them, and they’ll run the campaign with both their and my money. At other times we make more general campaigns with a landing page where the consumer can choose the platform where the sale might happen.”
Investing in marketing with or without direct involvement of a platform can therefore affect the level of prominence in editorial decisions.
“That makes it difficult of course because you’re up against Hollywood majors that work internationally and can do very different deals and promise marketing in all these different territories”
When a title underperformed at cinemas, the distributors adjusted their expectations in the next window on a per-film basis. In some cases, they believed that the high profile of the project would give good home entertainment numbers, as those who did not see it in cinemas were likely to be interested once it was available in the cheaper windows. In other cases, expectations in the home entertainment window were cut according to the underperformance in cinemas. Among the 2019 releases discussed in the case, there were examples where the distributors kept a high estimate and were disappointed, as well as titles where the high estimate was fulfilled.
“We often say that if a film doesn’t reach the last 100,000 of its potential, then it increases the potential in home entertainment. Because people still want to see it, they just didn’t have the time or chose something newer after a while.”
The distributors generally have high levels of insight into the numbers on TVOD and EST, but except for services they run themselves, they have no insight into SVOD numbers for the titles they have sold to streamers.
“We don’t have any numbers from streaming. Perhaps the conversion rate is great — we don’t know.”
Informants also expressed that they wanted digital numbers to be shared, but also that they did not want the first out of the gate8.
“It would have been interesting to know how others are doing, and how you’re performing relative to them. I’m not a secretive person, but the system has become like this. I think the streamers are setting precedent here, they keep everything very close-knit.”
| Title | Highest weekly cinema ranking | Highest observed iTunes ranking | Home entertainment performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amundsen | 1 | 12 | Below expectations |
| Operasjon Mumie | 2 | 8 | Below expectations |
| De dødes tjern | 9 | 37 | Below expectations |
| Swingers | 11 | 10 | Well above expectations |
| Håp | 3 | 87* | As expected |
The home entertainment performance of SF Studio’s two most ambitious 2019 movies were partially saved by DVD/Blu-ray deals with a supplier for a major supermarket chain. These deals had been made prior to the cinema release, and based on expectations that were not met. Swingers was, however, an even bigger home entertainment hit than expected. The film had more transactions in the home entertainment market than it had sold tickets in the cinemas, resulting in a conversion rate above 100%. This is almost unheard of for a Norwegian movie. These positive numbers did not, however, cover the losses made in the cinemas, especially for the producers who also would not receive ex post support.
“It won’t break even because our investment is too big to be able to recoup it in the home entertainment formats. I’m thinking that if NFI wants to see projects that have a digital first window, like they say they do, then it would be a better solution for these kinds of movies than cinema. If a comedy like this by some kind of miracle got NFI support.”
SF was aware that De dødes tjern would struggle in the home entertainment market, as horror has generally had poor conversion rates. The film still underperformed in the market, despite being on the front-pages of iTunes and Blockbuster longer than Håp, which performed better in the cinemas and had a higher conversion rate as well.
| Title | Highest weekly cinema ranking | Highest iTunes ranking | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ut og stjæle hester | 2 | 22 | Slightly above expectations |
| Askeladden - I Soria Moria slott | 1 | 2 | Slightly below expectations |
| Kaptein Sabeltann og Den Magiske Diamant | 1 | 1 | As expected |
| Spionen | 3 | 10 | Slightly above expectations |
| Snekker Andersen og Julenissen: Den vesle bygda som glømte at det var jul | 1 | 1 | As expected |
| Tunnelen | 1 | 1 | Above expectations |
Nordisk Film Distribusjon was generally happy with its home entertainment performance. Tunellen was a standout home entertainment success among 2019 titles, no doubt helped by the fact that it was released just before the first wave of pandemic lockdowns.
“We had always planned to release it for Easter, which is traditionally a good period. It’s worked very well, and when people are forced to stay indoors it is a very grateful market to enter now.”
Spionen also met its initial home entertainment targets, despite its lack of performance in cinemas. Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s assumption that the World War II spy story would work in the home entertainment markets were proven true, and the title received considerably higher prominence than other artistic path titles.
“The prominence has been what we expected. I don’t think it would have been much higher if it did well in cinemas, because Norwegian content gets priority as far as we can tell.”
While all films tend to have the same ticket prices as the box-office, there are some variations in the home market. Titles enter the home entertainment market at different price points, and there are differences in how, when and if these prices change as the titles grows older.
The distributors set a fixed cost per transaction to the platforms, who are then free to decide the final consumer price. While there is no percentage share, as is common on computer games platforms, there are often set price-tiers. Thus, the distributors can in most cases know what the consumer price will be based on the price point they have set to the platform.
“We can’t dictate pricing – that’s illegal in Norway, so we don’t use”suggested retail price” or anything like that. It’s up to the platform to set the price they want, based on our deal with them. (…) We have different kinds of deals but for new titles it’s mostly a fixed unit price, though sometimes it can be a percentage above a set minimum price and so on. The final price might vary from service to service, some might have a profile where they go lower on certain types of movies and so on.”
SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon regularly have titles offered at discount prices as a part of various home entertainment campaigns. These are sometimes initiated by the distributors and sometimes by the platforms.
“We do campaigns like this about twice a year. (…) We see that the platforms are very news-oriented in what they front. So, we have to put some effort into lifting films you might have missed. (…) We run some of it from our side. We have some titles that we want to push, and the platform might collect them under one banner, or they might create a category with other titles. (…) Sometimes the platforms come to us with requests, and sometimes we go to the market with a plan and the platforms choose to take part or not.”
This lower price campaigns rarely generate substantial revenue. However, they generate prominence for the involved titles and is a way to extract some revenue that would otherwise be lost. This is particularly true for titles that are just about to fall off the radar after their initial home entertainment release.
“Campaign weeks usually don’t earn more revenue, but timed correctly they can keep the revenue steady at a point where it otherwise would have dropped. Transactions increase quite a lot, but payment per transaction falls.”
TVOD was the biggest earning home entertainment format for almost all titles. Some titles might earn about as much in EST transactions as in TVOD transactions, but this is rare. No title does more in physical than digital sales. The distributors remained hopeful that the EST market could become more profitable.
“We see that TVOD has had a small drop, while EST has continued to grow, and we have estimates that say that this will continue.”
The Norwegian EST was also relatively larger than the Swedish and Danish markets. A trend that has continued from the DVD-era, when the Norwegian market was significantly larger than the neighbours per capita.
“Norwegians are more interested in the format as well. But it has a lot to do with market structure. In Sweden, Telia are big in TVOD, and they don’t have an EST product yet. And you need to have the market leaders make things happen.”
While several platforms had about the same share of the TVOD market, iTunes was by far the largest EST platform. One informant linked this to the notion that Apple could be trusted to always be there, most likely on devices you already own, and that the service does not charge a subscription fee as customers were less likely to purchase movies through services if they risked losing access to those movies. The informant also felt that since Apple charge a fee of all purchases made within apps from the App Store, many platforms would not offer TVOD/EST through their iOS/TVOS apps, resulting in a poorer consumer experience for many customers.
“That Apple takes a percentage of everything is a challenge. That you can’t rent or purchase movies in the Viaplay app is horrible from a consumer perspective. I hope somebody somewhere sits down and thinks about what the consumer wants, instead of always trying to extract the most revenue.”
Catalogue titles are also used to boost prominence and create expectations for upcoming titles. For SF Studios, this meant managing the exposure for Børning Bræin (2014) and Børning 2 Bræin (2016) in the run-up to Børning 3 Bræin (2020) being released in 2020, as well as releasing the 1958 version of De dødes tjern (bergstrom1958?) on a limited-edition DVD.
“The more fans we have of Børning and Børning 2, the bigger the potential for Børning 3 is. And they still sell in all formats. Even if it’s not big money, it keeps trickling in. So, we were able to use all the windows we have, and could also try to create revenue on the films that have spent most of their life and made most of their money.”
In the case of the Børning movies, this included selling them to Netflix, which added them to the service early in 202010. However, informant also felt the negative impact of having much of the catalogue exposed to streaming services.
“When working with the transaction-based sales, I notice how much better we have become at selling to streaming. Our catalogue is much more exposed to streaming-services, and the sale of catalogue titles in the transactional markets suffers as a result.”
Even if the local catalogues of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon have much higher prominence than other local titles, one informant still felt that they did not fully exploit their catalogue. With more people working in the industry, it would be possible to extract more revenue from the catalogue in both digital and physical formats.
“I think it’s beginning to dawn on those who work with physical media that there are opportunities. There are a number of movies that suddenly can’t be found on streaming, and people think,”what do I do now?” Well, you can buy it on Platekompaniet or you can rent it digitally. There are opportunities, it’s just that you don’t know about them. There are no systems where you get the overview of what is available and where. I think the existing formats could perform again if we had that overview and made an effort with it. I think the industry could find millions in revenue, but it takes people, and it takes systems and insight. And everything around streaming is very closed.”
Nordisk Film Distribusjon had an output deal with Viaplay that put all their 2019 movies on the service a little more than a year after the cinema release. However, in 2019, Nordisk Film Distribusjon announced a new deal with the Norwegian broadcaster TV2. Both TV2 and Nordisk Film Distribusjon are owned by the Danish Egmont corporation. In the new deal, movies from 2020 onwards would be available on the TV2 play service “nine months after cinema premiere”. In the interviews, Nordisk Film Distribusjon described the new deal as “critical”.
“This is the premium SVOD window, and it’s a very important window to get the economy working. Landing this deal, and it’s a very good deal for us, was critical. It’s also good to have a purely Norwegian deal, and it looks like TV2 will be pushing Norwegian films. We can work more long-term with this, which I think is very, very good. Without a deal like this we would have really been in trouble.”
SF Studios had a limited output deal with C More in which most of the company’s titles went to the streaming service. C More had few direct subscribers in Norway, but the service was available to both TV2 Play and Teliaplay subscribers. In 2022, it was shut down as an independent service in Norway, and its customers transferred to TV 2 play. It continues to operate in Sweden at the time of writing. SF Studios and C More were both previously a part of the Bonnier conglomerate, until C More was sold to Telia.
Amundsen also had a period as a “free-rental” on the Get platform. The broadband provider had invested in the movie and this was a part of that deal. While SF Studios was mildly sceptical to this deal, the informant was also sympathetic.
“It was evidently critical in financing the project. So, you might dislike something and realise that it’s necessary. (…) It doesn’t seem like it had a negative impact on sales, we had gotten most out of it already.”
One informant also stressed that it was best if they had all the rights and that while it was understandable producers sometimes sold rights directly, letting the distributor handle everything would yield a better total.
“I think a producer will get more from a 360-degree deal with a distributor. Because we can use all the windows in a way that they overlap in the best possible way. (…) But for many producers, realising the project in the first place is the most important thing.”
However, the informant also stressed that it was easy to get locked into deals that were not favourable, and as the digital film market was still evolving quickly long-term deals should be avoided.
“We have a deal with [platform] that’s running, and there is not a lot we can do about it. But if I could choose, it would be different. (…) It’s mainly about the timing. When the deal was made, the people who wrote the contracts didn’t think far enough ahead.”
Payment from streaming services is also generally decided by the performance in cinemas.
“Some contracts state that if you get such-and-such admissions, you get paid so-and-so much, so that [title] passed 100,000 is worth quite a lot. (…) It’s pretty fine-grained; there are a lot of steps on that ladder. But not all of them are that relevant based on what films do these days. If you look at admissions, there aren’t a lot of movies that do over 500,000 or over 700,000.”
Speaking in 2019, none of the distributors were ready to skip neither the cinema window nor the transactional home entertainment windows and go straight to SVOD. For one informant, this was mainly a question of getting paid enough.
“If we get paid enough, we’d be [on SVOD] the moment the films are available on home entertainment. The transaction-based formats are important for driving the different revenue streams, but from a consumer perspective, they could be streaming from day one. It’s a question of getting paid.”
Another informant felt that for most local films, remaining available in transactional markets was not just a question of revenue. However, they too remained open for other combinations in the future.
“You should never say never, but it’s clear that it undermines windows that are important to us. (…) There’s also this feeling of exclusivity, even if some services have very high market penetration, and we want the Norwegian films to be able to reach everybody. (…) But there could be types of products that we could consider it. More event-based stuff that could have a very short cinema window and go straight to streaming. If it had a very specific target group in mind, but we don’t have anything like that now.”
However, informants in both companies felt that the increased dominance of streaming services with exclusive deals was a potentially dangerous development. One of these fears was that the increased siloing of content would lead to a re-emergence of piracy, something the informants felt was a minor problem in 2019.
“Streaming has been advancing for years now, but it’s getting very fragmented. Apple+ is right around the corner, Disney+ is right around the corner. Everybody’s launching their own services, and it’s becoming very fragmented for the consumer. (…) As a consumer, you generally don’t think about what company a film comes from, with the exception of Disney. I think you’ll see an increase in piracy because people can’t be bothered to pay attention to all this.”
Another concern was that from the perspective of a Norwegian distribution company, there was a risk of becoming collateral damage in a high-stakes streaming war.
“It is forcing you as a consumer to choose, and how many subscriptions are you going to have? Will you be paying for each one or through a hub? It’s going to be a big fight, and it’s a market that will continue to mature. (…) Some will win and some will lose, and the question is who’ll be pulled along. The more you tie yourself up to exclusive deals, the bigger the risk gets. It could be positive, but it could also be a hard blow for some. It’s very difficult to tell how this will unfold.”
Nordisk Film Distribusjon has, however, established Nordisk Film+, a streaming service that is available as a part of bundles from several cable and television providers. The company emphasised that running its own service offers it information not provided by other streaming services.
“We’re testing this. [It] is relatively new to us. But it’s our attempt at trying this market, at finding out how it works and what kind of data we can get out of it. So far, it’s been very positive. (…) We find out what movies work and, not least, which movies don’t work, and we can create a service that’s better for consumers.”
Difficult, but deliberate changes
This case study confirms that, at least for SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon, the patterns and positions found in the previous chapter are largely results of deliberate choices. Both are trying to shorten the cinematic window and are increasing their reliance on local titles. Both prefer known content because it is safer, and they prefer certain release dates, and so on.
The differences between the two companies are also smaller in this case study than in the previous chapter. In strategic terms, their plans and perspectives were quite similar, and SF Studios seemed to be moving towards a position that was more similar to Nordisk Film Distribusjon, where owning production companies and investing (relatively) more in Norwegian films (and television) is a bigger part of their slate.
For Nordisk Film Distribusjon the increased commitment was the continuation of a strategy established before digitalisation. However, the company was also very aware that the digitalisation and globalisation of film dissemination made local content more valuable for them. SF Studios deliberately increased its commitment to Norwegian movies in a response not only to the falling value of foreign titles, but also to their becoming harder to acquire.
Still, while both companies saw that the digitalisation and globalisation of film dissemination had brought profound changes, there were limits to their ability to respond. Both remained dependent on producers, film policy, local cinemas, and Hollywood output deals, even when these had conflicting interests and were moving in opposite directions.
Case 2: Barn (Beware of children, Haugerud 2019)
This case builds on four interviews with the producer of Barn, from the production company Motlys, and the head of the distribution company Arthaus, three of which also included the head of the home entertainment distributor Star Media. All informants were interviewed together; the two first interviews were held at Arthaus’ offices and the second two were held on Zoom.
The first interview took place in September 2019, the day before Barn’s cinematic premiere. The second interview took place in December 2019, when the cinema run was all but done. At the time, Barn had just been released on home entertainment, but no figures had been reported yet. The third interview took place in March 2020, six months after the cinema premiere and three months after the home entertainment release. The fourth interview took place in April 2021, 18 months after the cinema premiere.
While all of these interviews were conducted by me and were based on the same interview guide in the previous case, they had a much looser conversational feel. Often the informants would ask each other questions and discuss matters concerning Barn and other topics among themselves. These meetings would not have taken place without my invitations, and the informants stated that they had enjoyed these moments to debrief.
In the following text, all three informants are referred to only as their company. This is for clarity, as their names are not relevant in this case. However, none of the informants requested anonymity and no attempt has been made to obscure their identities.
Production
Barn explores the aftermath of an incident in which 13-year-old Lykke causes the accidental death of classmate Jamie in the schoolyard. The film was Dag Johan Haugerud’s second full-length feature. Haugerud’s previous effort, Som du ser meg (haugerud2012?), was critically acclaimed in Norway. Dag Johan Haugerud has also directed three acclaimed medium-length features, Lyset fra Sjokoladefabrikken (haugerud2020?), Det er meg du vil ha Haugerud (2014) and Thomas Hylland Eriksen og historien om origamijenta (haugerud2005?). The last two were released by Arthaus, while Som du ser meg was released by Norsk Filmdistribusjon.
Barn was awarded production funding by the Norwegian Film Institute in May 2017. This made up NOK 11,5M of the total budget of NOK 19M. NOK 1M was provided by the Nordic Film and Television Fund, and SEK 800,000 by the Swedish Film Institute. The final amounts were secured by MGs from the international sales agent, Picture Tree International, the local distributor, Arthaus, and from investments by the production company, Motlys, as well as lines of credit from the equipment provider, Storyline. Production began in autumn 2017 and the film was finished around November 2018.
Motlys is among the more established Norwegian production companies, and have made several critically acclaimed movies. It operates in the artistic segment of the Norwegian film industry, and all the company’s movies have been supported by the artistic schemes. Motlys has produced all of Dag Johan Haugerud’s previous movies. In a study of six Norwegian film producers Engelstad and Moseng classified Barn’s producer as highly oriented towards “art” and “nurturing long-standing collaborations” (2014). In addition to Barn, Motlys had another 2019 release in Håp, which was distributed by SF Studios.
Arthaus was initially established to acquire titles for the Norwegian Federation of Film Societies. In 1992, it became an independent distribution company specialising in arthouse movies. Arthaus is organised as a non-profit foundation.
Barn was only the third Norwegian movie distributed by Arthaus since 2008. The first was the 45-minute film Sommerhuset (givaever2008?)). More recently, Arthaus distributed the Motlys-produced The Rules of Everything (hiortoy2017?). Barn was by far Arthaus’ biggest Norwegian title to-date and represented a bigger investment than most of the company’s titles both in terms of money and time.
“The budget isn’t that much higher than what we usually spend on a foreign movie, perhaps three times higher. However, in terms of resources spent, it’s probably five or seven times higher. When we release a Norwegian film, we’re included in the whole process. We create all the materials we need for the marketing. With foreign titles, there are a number of posters and trailers and so on that we can choose from. Now we have to create all of it. A lot of it is done by the producers, but always in a dialogue with us.”—Arthaus, September 2019
| English title | Norwegian title | Premiere | Weeks in cinemas | Admissions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woman at War | Kvinne på krigsstien | January 25 | 20 | 8,077 |
| Burning | Burning | February 22 | 19 | 4,806 |
| The Sisters Brothers | The Sisters Brothers | March 22 | 14 | 8,934 |
| Happy as Lazzaro | Lykkelige Lazzaro | April 12 | 25 | 7,103 |
| mid90s | mid90s | April 26 | 37 | 12,978 |
| Non-fiction | Mellom linjene | May 10 | 23 | 11,059 |
| 3 Faces | 3 kvinner | June 07 | 28 | 4,636 |
| Castle in the Sky | Laputa – Himmelslottet | June 28 | 23 | 4,096 |
| Amazing Grace | Amazing Grace | August 16 | 27 | 42,815 |
| Beware of Children | Barn | September 13 | 29 | 21,942 |
| Who You Think I Am | Forført | October 4 | 10 | 2,215 |
| And Then We Danced | I morgen danser vi | October 25 | 23 | 3,998 |
| Too Late to Die Young | Godt nyttår, Chile | November 22 | 13 | 3,910 |
| Echo | Echo | December 01 | 8 | 890 |
| Portrait of a Lady on Fire | Portrett av en kvinne i flammer | December 25 | 36 | 23,682 |
In economic terms, Barn was just another movie in Arthaus’ 2019 slate and Arthaus did not need it to make a bigger profit than any other 2019 titles. However, Arthaus clearly felt extra responsibility for Barn.
“We rarely release Norwegian titles and the experience we have is from Norwegian movies that nobody else wanted or saw a potential for cinematic release in. There were very low expectations. But this, this is one of the best Norwegian movies of the decade according to critics. We feel this is something more than some international festival winner. It’s something different.” —Arthaus, September 2019
Arthaus describes itself as a purely cinematic distribution company, and has rarely attempted to become involved directly in the home entertainment markets. While Arthaus retains the home entertainment rights to Barn, it has, since 2007, relied on Star Media Entertainment to handle both digital and physical home entertainment releases.
Star Media was originally founded in 1984 as a video distribution company. After a failed first attempt, the company became successful during the early 2000s. In 2019, it was acquired by Denmark’s Mis.Label but continued to operate in Norway as Star Media. Star Media acquired rights for foreign titles in all windows and did home entertainment, physical and/or digital, for several Norwegian distribution companies. But with the decline of the physical home entertainment market, Star Media had also shrunk, and by the time of the interviews had only one employee in Norway. In September 2021, a few months after the last interview, Star Media’s Norwegian office closed.
In 2019, Star Media Entertainment registered 82 titles in Videogramregisteret. 43 had not been in cinemas; of the others, 11 had been distributed in cinemas by Arthaus. Among the rest were 10 home entertainment releases for Another World, physical releases of Norwegian titles for Norsk Filmdistribusjon and Selmer Media.
Day and date talks
In their initial meetings with NFI, as support was awarded, Motlys was challenged to think about alternative strategies for distribution. It was clear that Barn would be a difficult film to sell in cinemas, no matter how good it became. While a key element of the Norwegian film support system, the ex post support, requires a certain number of cinema tickets sold, NFI has been eager to express that its support is platform neutral and that it would be willing to support movies that do not have cinemas as their first window.
“We were aware that it’s difficult for films like this, and the [NFI] commissioner asked us if it was possible to think about alternative ways of distribution.”—Motlys, December 2019
Based on these discussions, Motlys approached NRK, Norway’s state-owned public broadcaster and biggest television channel. Motlys suggested a variant of a day-and-date11 release, with a limited run on NRK during Barn’s opening weekend. The idea was that it would be available in cinemas and in NRK’s on-demand service during the opening weekend, and then have a regular cinema window for the rest of the run. Perhaps learning from the negative reactions to Euforia’s attempt at a streaming pre-release for Jakten på Berlusconi Endresen (2014)12, Motlys held talks with NFI, NRK and the main cinema chain in Oslo.
“We asked if NRK would be willing to offer a substantial amount to get a first window, an opening week or weekend where they put it on the front of their services.” — Motlys, December 2019
While the idea was that Barn would be the first test for this kind of day-and-date release, Motlys’ thought it could be a good release strategy for a few of the least commercial Norwegian movies each year.
“We discussed this with the heads of NRK, NFI and [cinema chain], and we could do this for two or three Norwegian films each year. Also, because it would mean that NRK would invest more in Norwegian films.” —Motlys, December 2019
NRK has played a relatively small role in the financing of Norwegian movies since 2001 and has generally only bought traditional TV rights. In recent years it has bought the “pay TV” window for some documentaries as well as Motlys’ 2021 feature Ninjababy (flikke2021?). However, unlike its Danish counterpart, DR, NRK has no obligation to invest in Norwegian movies.
Motlys had nevertheless had great experience working with NRK previously. Motlys had produced Heimebane (fasting2018?) which reached a million viewers, and so had seen up close how effective NRK’s marketing machine could be.
“Let’s say that it had attracted a few hundred thousand viewers, perhaps five hundred thousand. Then people would have started talking about it, and about how great it is. (…) And the buzz would have been”it’s not that grim, it’s a quite warm film actually”, and more people would see it in cinemas because of all the free marketing.” —Motlys, December 2019
For a while Motlys believed this could work, as the local heads of the cinema chain were positive. However, the foreign head office did not agree.
“[The local cinema heads] were a bit like,”this sound like a good idea, since we won’t make a lot of money on this film anyway”. (…) And then the message came from [the head office] ; “No way, it will be the end of our business”. We tried responding that this would only apply to a few small arthouse titles. But no, it would be the beginning of the end.” —Motlys, December 2019
While it did not come to pass, Motlys was pleasantly surprised that the local cinema heads had been open to the experiment. Company leaders felt the discussions had openly addressed some of the unresolved questions about how to help the smaller Norwegian movies in a market that had less space for them.
“What should we do with these kinds of movies? Should we stop making them? Is there a place for them in cinemas still? And should NFI support movies that don’t get screenings? So, everybody came to the table with a positive attitude and wanted to see what we could do. Well, it would have been fun to try.” —Motlys, December 2019
Continuing talks with NRK without the blessing of the cinemas was not an option, but Motlys had not given up on involving NRK in day-and-date style releases.
“Unfortunately, we can’t do this without [them]. They are too powerful. Hopefully, we continue to kick them on the shins until they realise that this is a win-win. To boost two or three Norwegian quality movies, which we agree that we should continue to make. (…) And if we get NRK to invest 2 million, then NFI can spend less. We just have to get them to understand that this is not the beginning of the end, but the start of something new.” —Motlys, December 2019
Festivals
For Barn, the primary release strategy was always going to be festival-led. Motlys felt the film could potentially be a Cannes contender, and set its sights on the French Riviera early. However, the first festival to show serious interest was Gothenburg.
“They were very interested in the movie and saw it in November 2018. They fell completely in love and wanted it as their opening movie. We thought that was nice and started planning for a February [2019] release. We were then contacted by the curator of the Director’s Forth-night in Cannes. While he would not promise anything, he advised us not to go up in Gothenburg. —Motlys, September 2019
With Cannes as a possibility, Arthaus and Motlys considered releasing Barn in June. While Norwegian movies are very rarely released in the summer months, Motlys was wary about the long wait from May to September or October.
“When we had Louder than Bombs in the main competition in Cannes and a Norwegian premiere in the autumn, we were disappointed. We thought that people had forgotten it.” —Motlys, September 2019
While releasing in June would go against conventional wisdom. Arthaus thought a gamble could pay off for Barn, especially considering its length. At 157 minutes, it was the longest running Norwegian titles in decades.
” We thought it would be exciting to have a Norwegian premiere right after Cannes. There are no Norwegian films released between April and August, and that would leave us all alone as a Norwegian film throughout the summer. Especially for such a long film, two and a half hours, it would be easier to program. Of course, you’re competing with the weather, but we thought that the weather had been so good [in 2018] it couldn’t be that great again [in 2019].” —Arthaus, September 2019
With a June premiere, Barn, could also benefit from the Norwegian Film Festival in August. If the film won awards, it could boost the cinema attendance if the film was still playing.
In the end, Cannes did not pick Barn, and Motlys now looked to Venice for a possible world premiere, with San Sebastián and Toronto as backups. Venice seemed interested, but getting an answer took time. An invitation from the Norwegian Film Festival became the final leverage Barn needed.
“It is a bit of a game, and quite difficult to be on top of. However, we were also invited to be the opening movie at the Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund [in August 2019]. We then went to Venice and said that we needed an answer. They saw it at seven in the morning the day after and loved it. It was picked very early for a side section, which again excluded the main competition. (…) Venice then makes San Sebastián impossible and Toronto less interested because they prefer world premieres.” —Motlys, September 2019
Barn was eventually screened at 15 international festivals, including Venice Days, Busan International Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Gothenburg International Film Festival.
Cinema release
With Venice secured, plans for a release date could be set. Arthaus and Motlys settled on September 13, 2019, almost a year after the film was completed.
“World premiere in Venice and Norwegian premiere a week later is perfect. We got the reviews when we opened in Venice and there is time enough to use them in the marketing. If it was two weeks, I think we would have lost momentum.” —Motlys, September 2019
However, opening in September meant there would be strong competition, not least from other Norwegian titles. It was therefore important for Arthaus that the date was set as early as possible.
“We announced September 13 in April or May, I think, and the others noted that. Hjelperytteren went a week earlier than first announced, leaving two weeks between them.” —Arthaus, September 2019
Another Norwegian movie, Spionen, was also scheduled to open the week after Barn, but moved to a later date to avoid Downton Abbey (engler2019?) which also opened on September 1313.
“UIP, which has Downton Abbey, doesn’t care if there’s a tiny Norwegian movie there. We will see; perhaps there’s room for both.” —Arthaus, September 2019
Norwegian movies have generally opened as wide as the number of copies allowed. After the digitalisation of the cinemas in 2011, this typically means that most cinemas only open movies when they premiere. However, Arthaus has remained careful not to open too wide (Øfsti 2011).
“We always have that discussion with all our movies. How widely we open, and if it’s better to release a movie in the bigger cities before it goes to the smaller cinemas and to let the word-of-mouth start working. However, with Barn and all the work we’re putting into the release, [and] its large – for us – marketing budget and the international festival, we think that it’ll be well known for the smaller cinemas at an earlier time. We have around 90 cinemas booked, and 60 of them for the first weekend. So, we expand a bit, but most of the cinemas that want the premiere will get it. There are still a few that won’t take it if they don’t get it on the first weekend, but I have the sense that more cinemas understand it might be better to wait a bit.” —Arthaus, September 2019
Critical reception
Barn was generally very well received by Norwegian critics, with several calling it the best Norwegian film of the year and even the decade. Others were more reserved and felt that it was too long and too political.
At the Norwegian Film festival Barn won nine Amanda awards: best film, best direction, best screenplay, best cinematography, best editing, best score, best sound design, best actor, and best supporting actor. It was also nominated for best supporting actress. Internationally it won the Nordic Council Film Prize, best film in the international competition at Thessaloniki Film Festival, and best Nordic film and best acting14 at the Gothenburg Film Festival. Barn was also nominated to the Queer Lion at Venice Film Festival, the Golden Alexander at Thessaloniki Film Festival, and the International Feature Film Competition Award at Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.
However, Barn did not end up as Norway’s candidate for the Academy Awards, losing out to Ut å stjæle hester in the end.
“We were on the [Norwegian] short list and did an interview with the Norwegian Oscar jury right before the premiere. At that point, Ut å stjæle hester had been out there for almost a year. I don’t think it was a bad choice. It’s not unlikely that it had a better chance at an Oscar. (…) US distribution plays a role there as well. It was a bit annoying to lose out because it would have been good for the marketing in Norway to be the Oscar candidate.” —Motlys, April 2021
Cinema performance
Talking before the cinema release, Arthaus had budgeted with a projection of somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 admissions.
“Then we’ll be happy and nobody will have lost money on this gamble. But I expect, and hope, and believe that we’ll get more.” —Arthaus, September 2019
Motlys was slightly more bullish in its expectations.
“I’m trying to not be disappointed, trying to keep expectations low and be happy with our achievements. But, I’m also a sore loser. I’m hoping we will reach as many as Dag Johans previous movie, Som du ser meg. Now, that was seven years ago and in a very different landscape, but it did 30,000. So, I’m guessing that if we do less than 30,000 I won’t be happy. I’ve said that this film needs a few great reviews and an international festival, and we’ve got that, but I will be disappointed if we go below 30,000.” —Motlys, September 2019
Barn opened with 3,358 admissions during the first weekend and after 16 weeks the first cinema run ended at around 20,500 admissions. After receiving nine Amanda awards it returned to cinemas and earned another 1,200 admissions. This second run was impacted by COVID-19 restrictions, and another planned series of special screenings in autumn 2020, after Barn won The Nordic Council Film Prize, were scrapped entirely because of new lockdowns in Oslo.
“We’d planned a series of screening at Vega Scene, with introductions from the director and a different actor each day. I think that could have generated a decent number of admissions.” —Motlys, April 2021
Speaking in late 2020 both Arthaus and Motlys expressed both pride in the movie and the way it was released, as well as disappointment in the admissions.
“Well, we are not in it for the money, as long as we manage to cover our costs we are happy. (…) I’m a bit disappointed because the movie was received so well, and we have gotten so much great feedback from all kinds of audiences. And I feel that we as a distributor did a very thorough job in trying to reach as many as possible. We did a lot of event screenings, using the large great cast in the movie, and Dag Johan has been everywhere. I think we did 20 special screenings with cast and crew. (…) We get some feedback that we shouldn’t be disappointed that this is a movie that might have done 10,000, and we got it up to 20,000. But, semi-happy.” —Arthaus, December 2019
Motlys shared similar sentiments.
“Even if I said 30,000 earlier, you adapt, and you see what others are doing and 20,000 is ok. I guess I’m happier with 20,000 than I thought I would be. Also because I’ve seen how hard Arthaus have worked to get it out. There are not a lot of things we could have done differently, except to make a different movie. I’m happy that we made a movie that, even if it is hard to sell, makes an impression. (…) I’d rather make a great movie that is seen by 20,000 than a movie seen by 100,000 that I’m not proud of.” —Motlys, December 2019
The competition from Downtown Abbey also hit hard, as the two movies competed for the same core audience of middle-aged women.
“We did not just lose audiences, but also many cinemas. They did an extra push for that movie during the opening weekend and had Downton Abbey events and stuff like that. So, that movie became their focus, their priority.” —Arthaus, December 2019
Moving Barn after the date for Downton Abbey was not really an option because of Venice.
“We had chosen that date because it was the weekend after Venice, and if not for that we could have moved again. So, that was unlucky.” —Motlys, December 2019
While Motlys hoped that the film still would get attention in the coming months as it was a candidate for the Dragon Award in Gothenburg and likely to get several Amanda awards and nominations at the Norwegian Film Festival. However, as Barn would no longer be in cinemas by then, this could only affect the home entertainment release.
“If Amanda had been in January we could have gambled on getting a lot of nominations, winning a lot of awards and getting a new actuality. With Force Majeur in Sweden, which we co-produced, it had one third of its admissions after Guldbaggen when it would otherwise been dead. And that was planned. —Motlys, December 2019
As time had passed after the premiere, both Motlys and Arthaus also realised that the film was an even harder sell than they first perceived.
“After a while you’re able to get a more outside view of the film, and I see that is hard to sell. Even to an interested audience. Because it hasn’t got that clear pitch, it’s just a very good film. It has no overreaching theme, it doesn’t try to create debate. It is just a film about being human in a difficult situation. And that is too vague in today’s cinema landscape.” —Motlys, December 2019
However, when evaluating the marketing, both were unsure if they had made the right decisions. They had avoided stating explicitly that Jamie dies in the marketing material, leaving it slightly ambiguous.
“I remember the discussion when we changed the pitch. [First] it was very clear that Jamie dies in an accident at school, and we changed to a serious injury. (…) I think it was Dag Johan Hagerud that wanted to be clear about what happens, don’t hide it. I’ve been thinking about it, maybe we should have been. It is impossible to know.” —Arthaus, December 2019
“[Veteran producer] John M. Jacobsen has often said that you can’t get away from what the movie truly is, you can’t market yourself away from the core of the movie.” —Motlys, December 2019
“Everybody I know, knew about Barn, and it was like”oh, that is the long film about a child who kills another child”, so the audiences had a clear idea about the movie.” —Arthaus, December 2019
There was never any discussion prior to making Barn if Jamie had to die. Motlys wondered if, in hindsight, that was a discussion they could have had.
“What if he had been in a coma. Would it have made it easier for the audiences? I think so, and it would have been more or less the same movie”. —Motlys, December 2019
In the end, however, both Motlys and Arthaus were committed to director Dag Johan Haugerud’s vision.
“If we had been operating in another, more commercial system, we would perhaps have simply said that this is a movie we won’t make.”Do you have anything else?” But when working with a director who you trust, it is exciting to just be a part of it, give him free reins and just try to help him succeed.” —Motlys, December 2019
While expectations for international success were low, it was further diminished by the COVID-19 pandemic. Barn opened in Denmark two weeks before cinemas closed. It was also released in Sweden in the spring of 2020, in a period of strict restrictions.
Home entertainment release
Barn was released in EST on iTunes December 2. A week later all other digital platforms in EST and TVOD, as well as DVD and Blu-ray followed. This gave Barn a relatively short cinematic window of 80 days.
The December 9 date was initially suggested by Arthaus, and neither Motlys nor Star Media had any objections to this. The date was decided before Barn opened in cinemas. Arthaus was aware that this was a slightly early release and expected it to still be playing in Oslo. However, Arthaus did not expect this to impact any screenings negatively and pointed to other titles like A Star is Born (cooper2018?), Bohemian Rhapsody (singer2018?) and their own Mid90s (hill2018?) that had all continued to perform in cinemas after they were released on VOD. Arthaus also wanted to have the physical home entertainment release before Christmas as it could possibly be a gift item.
The decision to have an early release on iTunes was made by Star Media, as it was one of very few options they have to boost the title’s prominence on digital platforms.
“In the old days, with [physical releases], we could offer marketing support to stores and buy shelf-space. You can’t do that digitally, you depend on word-of-mouth and cinema performance. The James Bonds and the Frosts will be featured anyway, but a move like Barn will struggle. So, we do stuff like early EST, not because it sells anything, but because we get”shelf space”.” —Star Media, December 2019
In Star Medias experience, iTunes was the largest platform for both EST and TVOD in 2019. However, as recently as 2017 Altibox was the platform that generated the most income. Since then, Altibox seems to have scaled down their efforts in digital movies.
Barn was also released at the slightly low EST price point of NOK 99. For Star Media, this was also a marketing strategy. They did not expect the film to have any meaningful EST sales and a lower price could give higher prominence and boost the TVOD sales where most of the transactions were expected to come anyway. The EST price was lowered again to NOK 79 in June 2020.
Barn was offered to all EST/TVOD platforms but not all of them, notably Blockbuster and Google Play Store, chose to offer it.
“It is very frustrating to see that we offer the movie to all platforms, but not all of them take it. And it is even more frustrating when they take it down after six or 12 months.” —Star Media, March 2020
Arthaus managed, during the first period of COVID-19-lockdown, to get an “Arthaus” section on the small Norwegian VOD platform Nettkino. Similar efforts had been made in conjunction with Star Media/Mis. Label to get a section on iTunes as well. Especially with the success of Parasite Arthaus hoped that film could draw attention to their other movies. However, as Arthaus only held the rights for Norway this proved difficult
“The problem is that these movies are not called Arthaus in Denmark, Sweden and Finland, and iTunes and Blockbuster and the others are Scandinavian players. I don’t understand why they can’t customise it for Norway and Sweden and so on. It could be Folkets Bio in Sweden and Arthaus in Norway, but that is a challenge for the Nordic Countries.” —Star Media, March 2020
Barn was also released on both DVD and Blu-ray. The higher cost of the Blu-ray release meant that Star Media were not prepared to risk the production costs. After some deliberation, Arthaus decided to cover these.
“We were in doubt about releasing it on Blu-ray, but we decided that, dammit, such a great movie deserves to be seen in the best format at home. —Arthaus, December 2019
Home Entertainment performance
Arthaus and Motlys were hopeful that the somewhat lacking cinema admissions, combined with great reviews, awards and high awareness, meant that there would be a relatively high number of people who were interested in seeing the movie when it was available at home. They had experienced this previously with Force Majeure (ostlund2014?) which did great in home entertainment markets, despite disappointing at only 20,000 admissions in Norwegian cinemas. Star Media was more reserved.
“I am very anxious about the digital release, because of the theme of the movie. Will be people think,”A movie about a child who dies? Am I in the mood for that? Or should I see World on Fire on NRK or whatever on Netflix?” Because the competition now is insane, there is some much to choose from all the time.” —Star Media, December 2019
Star Media were very hesitant to make any predictions on the performance of Barn in the various home entertainment formats. No VOD estimates were given, and DVD/Blu-rays estimates were very unsure. Star Media used to be able to make pretty accurate estimates on physical sales, but a shift in ordering from the bigger customers has changed this. They now order less upfront, but place re-orders quickly if sales are good. This places a bigger strain on the home entertainment distributors, as they risk either having too large inventories or be unable to fulfill re-orders if a movie performs well.
“It is very frustrating to not be able to estimate sales anymore. Platekompaniet has ordered 100 copies, does that mean I can sell 1000? Probably, but I would not promise [Arthaus] that.” —Star Media, December 2019
The initial run for both the DVD and Blu-ray was 500 copies each, the minimum order possible. In the spring of 2020 Barn had sold about 900 physical copies, around 1,700 TVOD transactions and 300 EST sales. On iTunes, where it sold most of its digital copies, it had charted at 4415. However, after receiving nine Amanda awards in the summer of 2020 it received a strong boost. By the spring of 2021 Barn had sold about 900 DVDs and 600 Blu-ray copies.
“There was a marked increase in sales after the Amanda awards, and it has sold steadily after that. So, about a third of the sales came after Amanda, which was almost nine months after the DVD-release” —Star Media, April 2021
In digital transactions, the boost was also very evident. In July, the total transactions were 143, compared to 1,847 in August, and it had reached number nine in the iTunes chart16. By the spring of 2021 the total was 5,000 TVOD transactions and 700 EST sales. Bringing the total number of home entertainment transactions up to around 7200. This places the conversion rate at a decent 33%
Star Media were pretty happy with these numbers, especially the EST sales were better than expected. While the Amanda awards had a noticeable effect on the number of transactions in the home market, all three informants still felt the timing of the Norwegian Film Festival left a lot to be desired. If Barn had caught this second-wind while still playing in cinemas, it would certainly have been more valuable for Arthaus and Motlys, and higher cinema admissions would generally also give more home entertainment transactions for Star Media as well.
Streaming and Television
Neither Arthaus nor Star Media had any substantial experience of selling movies to SVOD services. Arthaus had approached Netflix, among other streaming platforms, about the foreign titles they hold local distribution rights to. While there had been interest, they wanted to secure rights for all Nordic countries, which eventually fell through. However, both Arthaus and Star Media had some experience with selling movies to NRK, and some of Arthaus’ older titles had been made available on Get/Teliaplay and Altibox through a cooperation with Euforia.
Motlys had not made any attempts at selling their catalogue to streaming services, having the impression that they would not be very interested in their type of movies, and not pay very well in any case. Motlys did sell television and streaming rights for Barn during pre-production without the involvement of Arthaus.
C More bought the traditional pay TV window and made Barn available on their services in Scandinavia in September 2020, a year after the premiere. At one point it looked like this date would have to move, as COVID-19 might delay the Swedish premiere. In Sweden, no movie can have a shorter cinematic window than 122 days. However, the Swedish premiere was eventually set in May 2020, giving ample time for the mandated window.
Motlys had also sold TV, including on-demand, rights to YLE and NRK. Swedish SVT had been approached during the production, but had refused. After the success at Gothenburg Film Festival they had approached Motlys to buy TV rights, but at that point the rights had been sold to a Swedish distributor along with the other windows. The sale to NRK had a holdback period of 24 months after the cinema premiere. It was made available for two months on December 16, 2021, 26 months after the premiere.
Further collaborations
Arthaus passed over Motlys and Dag Johan Haugerud’s next film, the medium length feature Lyset fra Sjokoladefabrikken. Motlys self-distributed the movie to selected cinemas,17 and then sold it to NRK, where it remains on-demand in perpetuity. Arthaus had first been offered the movie when it was more of a “creative exercise” and not something with a “cinematic potential”.
“This was a year before Barn went into production. It was something Dag Johan Haugerud did when he was trying to finance Barn.” —Arthaus, March 2020
However, when it was selected for Gothenburg Film Festival and Tromsø International Film Festival in 2020, Motlys decided to try to get it into cinemas and went to Arthaus. They were reluctant since they had just finished the release of Barn which had drained the company, and since it was already selected for Gothenburg they would have to squeeze it into an already packed lineup.
“My team was simply not ready for a film like that, right after Barn. (…) [Motlys] came to us in November, and it was already at festivals, so the train was already moving.” —Arthaus, March 2020
Motlys did not seriously pursue any other distributors, and opted instead to release the film themselves.
“It was a good experience for us. This was a movie that was made on a very low budget, with small amount of NFI funding to finish it. So, we have no problem understanding that Arthaus passed it over. We had not expected that [Gothenburg] wanted it either. (…) Both me and Dag Johan Haugerud were pleasantly surprised that it got such a good reception. To us, it was just a small thing. So, I think it was a good thing that we released it ourselves. And then Arthaus can do the next Dag Johan film.” —Motlys, March 2020
To which Arthaus immediately responded.
“We were afraid that this disqualified us from further collaborations with Motlys and Dag Johan, but that was luckily disproved right now.” —Arthaus, March 2020
The Bottom Line
In the end, all three companies involved in Barn did just about break even. Motlys met their budgets when Barn passed 10,000 admissions to qualify for ex post support, which would trigger funds that matched their pre-sales in the form of Norwegian and foreign MGs as well as television and streaming rights. Beyond these they saw no profits from sales or admissions, but had not expected to either. For Motlys the key to survival is to stay in production.
“This was not a film we had counted on creating profits. We make money by making the movie.” —Motlys, April 2021
On a personal level, however, the movie had brought substantial awards money that was split between the director and the producer.
“For the director and [personally for] the producer there have been some awards’ money, the Dragon Award [from Gothenburg Film Festival] is one million [SEK] and The Nordic Council Film Prize is also quite a bit.” —Motlys, April 2021
Arthaus reached their minimum estimates and did not lose money, but had hoped for more.
“We are just over break even, but it would have been great to see 40,000 admissions. It didn’t do as well as we had hoped, but it reaches the estimates we needed to break even.” —Arthaus, April 2021
For Motlys and Dag Johan Haugerud it was also a major success that the film was screened at Venice and received prestigious awards in Gothenburg and Thessaloniki. Hopefully, opening doors for Haugerud internationally in the future. While Motlys was proud of the movie and what it had achieved, making another movie like Barn was not tempting.
“No. But you always want to do something new. For example, we now have a project with Dag Johan Haugerud that is going to be a 90-minute film, that will have a clear plot and theme. But it is more because you don’t want to repeat yourself.” —Motlys, December 2019
However, Motlys acknowledge that reaching audiences is a part of their ambition and that in the current market it is getting increasingly difficult to justify many of the films the company makes.
“We have a constant discussion on that dilemma. How can we reach a bigger audience and still make the movies we want to make and sacrificing the reasons why we make movies?” —Motlys, December 2019
Arthaus shared a similar sentiment.
“What we dream of is distributing movies like Parasite, who manage both. That are brilliant artistic and uncompromising throughout the movie and still have a big appeal. But, you know, that happens every third leap year.” —Arthaus, December 2019
For Motlys, Barn was another example of a movie that was an artistic success, where they did get their investments back, and managed to stay in production for a while longer. However, they were unable to generate any profits of the project.
“The problem is, with this kind of film, is that you are always forced to put more capital in it than you really want. Just to get it realised. The target is always to invest less [of our own money] in the actual film, so that there might be some profits in the end. (…) We are quite prudent. Yes, we might have hoped for twice the admissions, but we knew that it was likely to go the way it did. It becomes a virtue by necessity. The main problem for the Norwegian film industry is that there are so few Norwegians.” —Motlys, March 2020
Art first
The release of Barn was almost a textbook artistic movie release. The film received high praise, but modest audiences. None of the companies involved made any profits, but all avoided losses. Motlys and Arthaus also made several choices that, while good for the movie and Dag Johan Haugerud and Motlys’ long-term goals, might have hurt the admissions. By initially passing on Gothenburg Film Festival for more attractive festivals later in the year, they were forced to release Barn in the autumn.
While the Venice premiere certainly gave the local release a higher profile than a Gothenburg premiere would, it is not given that this translated into significantly higher audiences. Gothenburg would allow a spring, or even early summer release as had been discussed, which would have given them less competition at cinemas, and they might have gotten a significant boost from the Norwegian Film Festival. While Barn got a significant boost from the Norwegian Film Festival in the home entertainment markets, this would have been far more valuable if the movie was still playing in cinemas.
While Motlys certainly wanted as high admissions as possible, prioritising a prestigious festival over possible local admissions would not hurt their earnings. Motlys budgets only required the movie to trigger ex post support. For Arthaus, however, higher admissions would result in more revenue. If their investment in Barn had been purely economic, then this could have been a conflict. However, it was evident that Arthaus, also from the decision to release Barn on Blu-ray, gave artistic considerations more weight than economic.
While it is impossible to know how Barn would have fared with an earlier release, the release strategy was relatively successful by all measurable means. Barn was in cinemas for a total of 29 weeks, more than any other Norwegian 2019 title released by a low-resource distributor with the exception of the children’s title Brillebjørn på ferie. It also remained longer in cinemas than several of SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s titles, despite some of them far exceeding Barns admissions18. While the 29 weeks includes Barn’s return to cinemas in 2002, this only serves to reinforce that Arthaus punched above the weight of its admissions in cinemas.
| Total admissions | Highest iTunes Chart | |
|---|---|---|
| Barn | 21,568 | 9 |
| Disco | 41,044 | 16 |
| Håp | 46,661 | 91 |
| Swingers | 10,096 | 10 |
| De dødes tjern | 17,628 | 43 |
Barn also performed well in home entertainment windows, especially after it won nine Amanda awards in 2020. While no sales figures for other titles are known, Barn did very well in the iTunes chart compared to admissions.
| iTunes | Google Play | Blockbuster | Viaplay Store | Altibox | Get /Teliaplay | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barn | 13 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 10 | 10 |
| Disco | 11 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Håp | 7 | 14 | 5 | 64 | 20 | 19 |
| Swingers | 17 | 65 | 10 | 88 | 37 | 4 |
| De dødes tjern | 16 | 28 | 1 | 72 | 6 | 32 |
: Number of observations on TVOD/EST platforms from 2019 to 2021 for Barn and selected movies.
While Barn did well in the iTunes chart, Arthaus/Star Media struggled to get prominence on several of other platforms compared to high-resource distributor SF Studios. The SF Studios titles closest to Barn in admissions, Håp, Swingers and De dødes tjern, were all featured on all observed platforms. Barn, and low-resource distributor Mer Filmdistribusjon’s Disco were absent from several.
| TV2 Play | Viaplay | |
|---|---|---|
| Barn | 20 | 0 |
| Disco | 0 | 0 |
| Håp | 5 | 0 |
| Swingers | 40 | 20 |
| De dødes tjern | 0 | 0 |
Barn was also the only title released by a low-resource distributor to get a SVOD release in the first streaming window. The deal with C More was, however, negotiated by Motlys without Arthaus’ involvement. Motlys’ other 2019 title, Håp, distributed by SF Studios, also went to C More about a year after theatrical release. It is not inconceivable that Motlys was able to build on their relationship with C More through SF Studios to secure the SVOD deal for Barn as well.
Deliberate changes, stable perspectives
This chapter has examined the strategies of selected Norwegian distributors as plans and perspectives. As already discussed, they largely conform that the patterns and positions identified in chapter 4 are the result of deliberate strategies.
However, that distributors are able to make and follow through on deliberate strategies does not necessarily imply they can eliminate risk and get predictable results. Despite following their plans, almost all of the 2019 titles examined fell short of their ambitions. Distributors still felt at mercy of NFI, cinemas, Hollywood, producers, festivals, and not to mention the weather.
Their ability to make deliberate strategies did not stem from a controllable environment, but from their focus on controlling what they could control. However, all projects from all the distributors sooner or later pass a “point-of-no-return,” where set strategy must be followed through, even if it is apparent that changed conditions such as Hollywood competition will have negative impact. In a market that is essentially too small to be sustainable, distributors walk a tightrope between optimism and precise predictions.
Despite the many differences between SF Studios, Nordisk Film Distribusjon and Arthaus, they faced their daily challenges in a remarkably similar way. SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon might spend far more than Arthaus on marketing, but for all three, getting the marketing right was as crucial as the amount spent. SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon might release far more commercial local titles than Barn, but on local titles they are all are chasing margins rather than hits.
Bonnier and Egmont are, of course, multinational corporations that make significantly more profit in Norway and the other Nordic countries than Arthaus, which is a non-profit foundation. While the informants in both SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon felt that their owners were committed to their 100+ years of history in the film industry, their Norwegian operations have to add some value to the overall conglomerate.
However, these case studies also show that in the digital home entertainment markets, having a significant presence in the Nordic countries has an added value. Arthaus’ ability to sell their home entertainment catalogue was limited by the fact that they only had Norwegian rights when the platforms sought Nordic or global rights. SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon’s advantage in the home entertainment markets was not just down to the strength of their titles and their more active home entertainment strategies. They could offer Nordic rights for most of their tiles, as well as have relations with major platforms on a Nordic level, which reduces transactional costs for all involved parties.
Both case studies also show distributors that are willing to innovate and trying to adapt to changes in the industry. These range from small-scale experiments with release dates and formats to more ambitious projects such as Nordic Film+. Arthaus’ and Motlys’ unsuccessful day-and-date ambitions shows, however, that their ability to make significant breaks from the form is limited. While SF Studios and Nordisk Film Distribusjon could imagine that non-traditional releases could be good for some of their titles as well, they saw no viable path that did not depend on cinemas.
The most significant changes evident from the case studies is, however, Arthaus and SF Studios’ increased commitment to Norwegian movies. While this is in line with the general trend found in chapter 4, SF Studios and Arthaus were among the few companies that did not show increased reliance on local admission during the examined period.
While these changes were big, especially for Arthaus, they were also in line with their perspectives. Arthaus is an arthouse distributor, when they acquire a local title it is a potential festival winner, like most of their foreign titles have been. SF Studios is a mainstream company, they acquire and distribute mainstream titles whether they are local or foreign. Their increased commitments to local movies come in the form of acquisitions of companies that make mainstream movies. While these acquisitions might move them more towards Nordisk Film Distribusjon and the local content lead position, they have also signed a new output deal with Sony which would strengthen their position as a market lead contender.
The distributors were also united in their belief that these were exceptionally difficult times. There are, as this thesis has shown, several reasons that this might be true. However, one should be critical of any description of past times as “golden ages”. The troubles distributors are facing, are likely to appear more intimidating than the challenges they have survived. If, as an example, the recent golden age for the Norwegian film industry was characterised by high admissions in cinemas, high home entertainment revenue and an ex post scheme that stimulated private investments, then the golden age began in 2010 and ended in 2012.
References
Share of SF Studios ownership in parentheses↩︎
Development support only, no production support.↩︎
Share of Nordisk Film ownership in parentheses↩︎
If Astrup - Flammen over Jølster is considered a documentary. it is stylistically a hybrid and could as easily be considered historical fiction.↩︎
In 2021 Qvisten Animasjon was awarded NOK 5M by NFI to produce another Kaptein Sabeltann movie.↩︎
See Figure 24 in the appendix.↩︎
See Figure 25 in the appendix.↩︎
In 2021 distributors and some of the platforms created “Filmtopplisten”, a chart of the ten best-selling home entertainment titles each week.↩︎
Unfortunately iTunes Top Charts observations are missing in the first two weeks after Håp’s EST release.↩︎
Børning 3 Bræin (2020) would eventually be released on Netflix simultaneously as other home entertainment formats.↩︎
Day-and-date is an industry term that refers to movies that are released in theatres and home entertainment platforms at the same date.↩︎
Described in chapter 3↩︎
See the previous chapter↩︎
Henriette Steenstrup, the nominee for best supporting actress at the Norwegian Film Festival.↩︎
Highest charting position noted in weekly observations↩︎
On 20.08.2020, almost a year after theatrical release.↩︎
Cinematekene and Vega Scene↩︎
See Table 33 in the appendix and Table 6 in the Introduction Part 2.↩︎