Articles
Articles from major publications around the web, talking about the latest commercial trends and break out hits in the commercial niche movie industry, which is growing on VOD platforms like Netflix, SyFy, Hulu and Amazon TV.
The Brilliantly Stupid Programming Strategy Behind Syfy's 'Sharknado'
Forbes
The instant camp classic was the biggest thing on social media Thursday night, generating 5,000 tweets per minute and climbing to No. 2 on Google Trends. That's an awful lot of pop for under a million bucks, which is what Syfy spent on the film, according to Thomas Vitale, the network's executive vice president for programming and original movies.
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No budget? No stars? No problem! How to REALLY sell a film at Cannes
CNN
Away from the manicured glamor of the Croisette, there's another Cannes -- a Cannes that lies beneath. Beneath the red carpet of the Palais du Festival in the basement, that is.
It's a seething, throbbing film market alive with b-movies -- low-budget features with no big name actors attached -- often horrors, thrillers, erotic movies or "mockbusters".
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20 Mockbusters You Might Confuse for the Real Movie
Mental Foss
When there’s massive hype and anticipation for a major release, sometimes smaller studios try to cash in, piggy-backing off the blockbuster’s success with their own low-budget versions. With the advent of online video streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus, these “mockbusters” have been on the rise for the past 10 years. Here are 20 knock-off movies that you might confuse for the real deal (if you squint real hard).
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Why Netflix Has Never Envied the Success of Google or Facebook
Big Think
According to Netflix's VP of Product Development, there's a misconception about big data. It's not a treasure trove of information, as many people and their companies assume, but more like "a big mountain of garbage." The problem, as Todd Yellin sees it, is sifting through the data to find the information that will actually benefit users, and that data is few and far between.
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The Return Of The 'Mockbuster' - How Netflix Helps Give Movie Knock-Offs A Second Life
Forbes
"The animated knockoff is what's known in the film industry as a drafting opportunity,'" says Ben Fritz of the LA Times. "Movies like Renegade's "draft" off of major studios' multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns for similarly titled films."
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Attack Of The Mockbuster Movie: Hobbits, Zombies And 2-Headed Sharks
Forbes
Their method is simple and cynically state-of-the-art: Customers tell them exactly what they want in a film, how much they'll pay for it and when they'll need it--and The Asylum delivers.
ArticleForbes
An article on Forbes describing well the online B movie business model.Read -->
Why Christian Movies Continue To Crush It At The Box Office
Business Insider
"When a movie's aimed at religious crowds, you don't launch it the same way you would launch 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2,'" says Contrino.
"What you have with these movies is a grassroots campaign that's targeted specifically at this group and reaching out to churches and making sure they get into theaters,” he adds. “That's another component to the profitability because they don't have to do the big ad spend necessarily that other studio pictures do."
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B-Movie Boom: Sharknado studio stirs whirlwind of profit
Wired
The Burbank-based studio, The Asylum, was generating $5 million per year in annual revenue in 2009, when WIRED profiled the maker of unashamedly cheesy, low-budget, impulse-watch movies in a magazine feature. Sales continued at roughly that rate in 2010, COO Paul Bales tells us, before beginning a steady ascent that has The Asylum on track for an estimated $19 million in revenue this year, roughly a third of that profit.
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