1. It looks like Moviesam was right: HH started out with a shortfall guarantee, but it doesn’t seem to be there any more. (See Section 4 below.) 2. Eric had little faith in the movie to begin with. (See bolded part in Section 1 below.) 3. Fred didn’t like it either. (See Section 3.) 4. The stars were not committed to help publicize it. Remember how surprising it was when the stars didn’t show up at the NYC opening and then didn’t do any promo for it? (See underlined part in Section 1.)
So HH put another large debt on the books for a movie they didn’t think would do well?
What went on here? What happened to the shortfall agreement? Did MGM put something over on them??? Did they do this to start a relationship with Patriot Pictures??? It doesn’t make sense to distribute a picture you have so little faith in without the protection they thought they had.
SECTION 1 – c. 17 MINUTE MARK
ERIC. Other substantial titles for the company included All’s Faire in Love. The first picture, hopefully of many that we would do with Patriot Pictures, a well-known production entity in Los Angeles and…
FRED. Also the first ever exclusive arrangement with Regal Theatres with anyone, not just with us. And even though it didn’t perform well with Regal, they are still talking to us about future projects.
Q. Has All’s Faire in Love damaged your relationship with Patriot Pictures?
FRED. I can’t say that it has. I certainly don’t know of any reason to say that it has damaged the relationship at all. We’re continuing to talk. I speak with – I mostly speak with their attorney, who is the brother of the prime mover of Patriot. But we were talking about future projects.
ERIC. But…
FRED. I would have to say that certainly there’s the potential of a damaged relationship, but I don’t see any reason to say that that’s the case now. As to why it didn’t perform, I think that could conceivably cause some concern. I don’t think it really caused a rela – a damaged relationship with Patriot. I think it’s very possible that it caused a damaged relationship with the actual producers of the film. They’re very proud of their film. But we hope that we’ll make them even prouder on home video.
ERIC. And the home video response is good and it comes out February the 7th. You know, we were told from the start with All’s Faire in Love that their obligation to meet certain international criteria was that they have a major market theatrical release in the U.S. And we said to them, “We have no idea if this picture is going to perform. Comedy is tough. Romantic comedy is the toughest part of the toughest genre. And if you can’t guarantee the support of the major stars we can’t guarantee that anybody’s really even going to know about this. But if you want us to release it in theatres because that helps you with your international, let’s all go into this with our eyes open and know exactly what we may or may not be getting into.” We were excited that Regal liked the movie, that the head theatrical booker saw the screener and said, “I’m willing to put our corporate name behind this because I think it could do some business.” So, you know, when you have the nation’s largest retail chain saying, “This picture might work” you know, it’s – who are we to second-guess them on that? And it just proves that you really never know where lightning is going to strike theatrically.
Having said that, after the movie opened and bombed, Michael Mendelsohn called me and said, “Find out if Regal is interested in doing Vengeance: A Love Story. I immediately went back to our contact at Regal, sent them the information on the film and they came back and said, “We’re absolutely open to that.” Although they did say, “We can only give you 250 screens for Vengeance: A Love Story.” And I think that that particular picture, if it comes together the way that they’re currently planning to put it together, could arguably deserve a bigger release than 250 screens. So an exclusive with Regal is an option but not necessarily the best path for that film if they end up with the cast that they __________.
FRED. Let me also say in response to your question that Patriot saw our releasing plans and the way we carried out those releasing plans for All’s Faire in theatres, and I think at least in part, and I think in large part, because of that, they hired us, engaged us, to do the home media as well.
ERIC. Yeah, that was a secondary license, so…
“Please repeat audience questions before you answer.” Ah! Fair enough. We’ll do that. The question from the audience that Fred and I have been responding to was, “Did the lackluster performance of All’s Faire in Love at the box office damage our relationship with Patriot Pictures?” And our response is, “Not to our knowledge. We’re continuing to work with them on putting together a possible venture on another film, and we have since – since the movie opened at box office we subsequently have been engaged to do the home video. So if they’re unhappy they’re not giving us any indications of that. And I do think that the home video could be a successful release, it’s coming out February the 7th and we’re trying to capitalize on the romantic comedy angle for Valentine’s Day. As you can see our theatrical standees emphasize the romantic comedy aspect of it with the heart, all of our video trade ads are emphasizing that with the heart, and our video packaging has that nice big heart on it. So what we’re trying to do is let the consumer and let the video retailers recognize that All’s Faire in Love would be a great title to rent or purchase for Valentine’s Day. The release date is February 7th and we have some real substantial retail placements on it.
FRED. We do. We’ve already, we’re getting purchase orders. The video is being replicated now and it’ll ship on time. It’ll get to the distribution centers on a timely basis. And so we’re excited about moving forward with future[?] sales of it as well.
SECTION 2 – c. 25 MINUTE MARK
ERIC. … Again, with Regal Entertainment we were their first theatrical exclusive, and as I mentioned they’re open and actively asking us to give them more titles for exclusive, and hopefully next time we’ll capture a little more box office magic. We did have the All’s Faire in Love trailer up in all of the locations that Regal opened, about 91 theatres. It was up for three weeks and we had the standees up and we had,,,
FRED. posters
ERIC. posters
FRED. One very large poster in New York.
ERIC. True. And they did several outbound e-mail blasts to their Regal Gold Club members. They have about 5 million ______ members that get weekly blasts of new releases. And so Regal did quite a bit to help us but we didn’t get traction but it’s certainly not for lack of effort on both our parts and their part and they recognize that and have said come back to us again and maybe we’ll do better. I can’t imagine us not doing better. So.
SECTION 3 – c. 35 MINUTE MARK
FRED. … And one of the first things I learned when I first joined the company a little over four years ago now, was that the movies that I like are not necessarily the movies that sell. And so I try to stay out of that except to say, “I’m not paying money to go to this and my friends are not going to pay money to go to this” and I make my comments clear, but that doesn’t mean that I take the lead in that situation because I’m not an industry person at all and don’t pretend to be.
ERIC. Except he didn’t like All’s Faire in Love, so his opinion was consistent with the market’s opinion.
SECTION 4 – c. 127 MINUTE MARK
ERIC. “Is All’s Faire in Love DVD being underwritten by MGM?” That’s a flawed question. MGM was the original distributor of All’s Faire in Love and we are now the distributor of All’s Faire in Love. MGM is no longer involved. So I don’t understand the…
FRED. So the answer is, “No, it’s not being underwritten.” Hanover House is paying for the distribution. We are paying for it from both our operating funds and through our relationship with National Bank of California, although the relationship with National Bank of California for All’s Faire in Love was primarily for the theatrical, and it has been very limited, just with whatever remaining balance is available, that we’ve used for the home media distribution.
