Hannover House Inc (HHSE)

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Criteria for Picking Movies

Does anyone know what their criteria is for picking the movies they pick? There is no consistency with the movies.

That’s an interesting subject.

I, for one, don’t mind if they jump on opportunities that pop up that don’t meet the criteria of a basic plan, and I don’t mind if the plan keeps changing as circumstances change, but It’s a bit disconcerting to think that maybe they don’t know whether they have a plan or not.

I think they’re still playing it by ear in spite of what they say.

Below are excerpts from
1. The Shareholders Meeting in January
2. April 19th General Meeting
3. April 19th The Conspiracy PR
4. May 13th PR
These are the four times they expounded on the subject that I am aware of.

1. Shareholders Meeting January

“At the same time that we were learning these painful lessons about theatrical releasing, we were also watching a film that we passed on at Sundance, called Winter’s Bone. And the conventional wisdom if you’re a DVD company or a book publisher and you’re just getting your toe in the water of theatrical releases is, “Hey lets go for films with big stars.” And we went for Twelve. Racing Dreams didn’t have stars because it was a documentary. Winter’s Bone didn’t have stars at all, and we thought it was a great film but we just thought, “Oh, gee, maybe we’re jaded, maybe we know too much about the Ozarks, maybe we like it more than the average audience will like it because, you know, we know people like this.” And so we didn’t really pursue that film. And as – and what they did, that we think is a really, really smart strategy for certain kinds of films, is they opened New York exclusively. And they had two screens. I think they had the Lincoln Plaza and they had the Angelica Film Center, and they did huge business. And then they expanded to Chicago and L.A., so they had New York, L.A., Chicago. Continued to do huge business. And over the period of the next three months, they expanded from two screens in New York to about 150 screens, and they’ve ended up playing all across the country. They did about $6 million at the box office with less than a million dollars expenditure, at least that’s what we’re told. Cause we don’t know exactly what they spent but we were told by somebody involved in the production that that’s what they spent. And then they came out on video through Lionsgate and it was a huge, huge video release. So we’re sitting here saying, “OK, you know what, that could have been us and we thought because there weren’t stars that it was not a smart move to do.” But the reality is if you have a good movie and you put it in the right theatre, you’ll start to create some buzz, you’ll start to create some word of mouth and then you can expand, or stop if necessary, before you go to DVD and Blu-ray. And that’s kind of what we’re going to be talking to you about for 2011.”

2. April 19 General Meeting

g). Update on New Title Acquisitions – The Company acquired the distribution rights to three new “theatrical caliber” features at the MIP-TV market in Cannes, France, earlier this month. As approval for the public announcement of each title is received from licensors, press releases will be posted and these titles will be added to the Company’s 2011 release slate. The first title announced is the $15-million budgeted period-drama, “The Conspiracy” starring Jason Isaacs, Julia Ormond and Jurgen Prochnow. Conversely, the Company has deleted the indie drama, “Girlfriend” from its release plans, and is pursuing a more commercially-friendly strategy of acquiring higher-profile, higher-budgeted titles on a going-forward basis. During the last six months of 2011 – from June 24th (with the theatrical launch of “Turtle: The Incredible Journey”) until November 11, 2011 (with the release of “MIP-TV acquisition # 2” to be announced shortly) – the Company will be releasing a total of eight new release titles to theaters in the United States. For the entirety of calendar year 2011, the Company will also be releasing thirty-six titles to the DVD and / or Blu-Ray markets, and (as presently slated) five new release books (excluding six additional “re-launch” book titles onto various E-Book formats). Based on current cash flow and existing vendor credit lines -- as well as those funds anticipated to be received through the SeaWorld and National Bank of California ventures – the Company is sufficiently financed to meet its sales and revenue goals with the existing product slate.

3. April 19 The Conspiracy PR

"This is a high-profile film with a significant budget and recognized cast," said Eric Parkinson, C.E.O. of Hannover House and Target Development Group, Inc. "As we continue to grow as an independent distributor, we will be focusing our release activities on more significant titles with greater commercial appeal. The production values, performances, and historically-based storyline presented in 'The Conspiracy' meet these corporate goals and should satisfy audiences for romantic, period dramas."

4. May 13 PR on the latest three acquisitions

“’The Weather Station’ and ‘Toys in the Attic’ will be released in theaters that specialize in their respective genres. In announcing these acquisitions, Fred Shefte, President of Hannover House and Target Development Group, Inc. said, "This is a very positive step in expanding Hannover's theatrical and home media distribution to new markets. It is in keeping with Hannover's overall business plan of distributing the highest quality independent films to a wide range of markets and audiences. We are very pleased to announce our acquisition of these important films. It is a logical progression into the international marketplace."