Question 3

A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of a film. The distributor may set the release date of a film and the method by which a film to be exhibited or made available for viewing: for example, directly to the public either theoretically or for home viewing (DVD, video-on-demand, (such as Netflix or love film) download, television programs through broadcast syndication). A distributor may do this directly, if the distributor owns the theatres or film distribution networks, or through theatrical exhibitors and other sub-distributors. A limited distributor may deal only with particular products, such as DVDs or Blu-ray, or may act in a particular country or market.

We researched into films of similar theme and genre, and we realised that most action films such as 'Bourne Ultimatum (which had a budget of $110m) and Batman: Dark Knight (which had a budget of $185m) have high budget to incorporate the realness that this specific genre needs. We have decided that our films should be High Budget because it is very realistic and creating realism isn't cheap.

If we chose a distributor we would choose one that has done films of the same genre before, so they are experienced with marketing to this genre and will make the film as accessible and successful as possible, probably 'New Line Cinema' as they had distributed se7en, which is a very similar film to ours in terms of its theme and style. Although we would use a bigger budget distributor that doesn't mean that the film couldn't be a success if we chose an independent distributor, films such as 'Paranormal Activity' were made with a relatively tiny budget compared to most films that were as popular.


We have chosen Warner Brothers to distribute because they are the leading distributer in 2013 with a total of 900 films including the newly released 'Gravity' and the action film 'The Dark Knight'. They a also create films like 'Sherlock Holmes' and 'Inception' which are films that have the same genre as ours, which is action/crime.

We expect that, because of the popular genre that we chose, our film would go to a multiplex cinema such as Odeon which is one of the largest cinema companies in Europe. We also have chose this because our target audience is males under 35, who are more likely to go to cinema to see films than males over 35. Our film is very mainstream, it has a very popular genre that is suitable for virtually everyone. The popularity of the genre would mean that marketing for the film would have to be in multiple areas such as online video sites such as Youtube, newspapers and magazines such as The Sun and also on Television. By doing this, we cover the major gateways to the public.