Q3. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE

YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

POSSIBLE DISTRIBUTORS

1. Walt Disney Studios:The top 10 highest-grossing films distributed by Walt Disney Studios worldwide includes ‘Star Wars: The force awakens’, ‘The Avengers’, ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’, ‘Frozen’, ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’, ‘Toy Story 3’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘The Lion King’. Out of these 10, ‘The Avengers’ is the only one of the thriller genre (classified by the IMDb), however it can be said that the lack of thriller conventions within this film (for example: themes, like voyeurism, isolation ect.) could prove that ‘The Avengers’ is mostly an action/adventure rather than thriller. The other 9 films are of the adventure genre which shows that Walt Disney distribute more successful adventure, action, sci-fi and animation films rather than thriller films. Walt

Disney’s target audience is also a factor which our group have to consider, as it is known that their films are mostly aimed at children and families with, for example, 74% of the audience comprising of families to attend the re-release of ‘The Lion King’. It can be said how this proves Walt Disney’s consistent reputation for children/family films, as well as mutliple popular animations, like ‘Frozen’, which will mostly like make it an inappropriate distributor for our thriller. Therefore, I can question whether Walt Disney is the correct distributor for us, as our film is a thriller, with a horror sub-genre- none of which are favourable by the general viewing population of Walt Disney Studios films nor profitable by the company.

2. 20th Century Fox Film Corporation: It is shown that the top 10 highest grossing films distributed by 20th Century Fox include ‘Avatar’, ‘Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace’, ‘Star Wars: Episode III-Revenge of the Sith’, ‘Star Wars’, Independence Day’, ‘Star Wars: Episode II- Attack of the Clones’, ‘Star Wars: Episode VI-Return of the Jedi’, ‘Night of the Museum’ and ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’. These results show how popular, not only the Star Wars franchise is, but the genres of fantasy, adventure and action are. The frequent popularity of these genres seem to be relevant in many film distributors, therefore I can suspect that the thriller film isn’t necessarily a profitable genre. It is also shown through these films that 20th Century Fox distribute frequent films containing big stars or big franchises, which will be excellent for large Hollywood movies but not our thriller, which has none of these factors. However, in order to make our thriller film successful we need to pursue the distributor than has the most thrillers (as well as horrors) that are profitable within the film industry. 20th Century Fox typically has an audience comprised of early to late teens, which somewhat fits into our potential target audience for ‘Happy New Year’ however our group is aiming for more late teens to early adulthood as it includes some horror slasher film conventions. Consequently, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation isn’t the institution that would distribute our media product due to its lack of distribution for the thriller genre as well as the typical target audience that watch films distributed by this company.

3. Universal Pictures:According to IMDb, the highest grossing thrillers worldwide are ‘Jurassic World’, ‘Avengers Assemble’, ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’, ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Jurassic Park’, ‘American Sniper’, ‘Fast & Furious 7’, ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1’ and ‘Skyfall’. Out of these 10, ‘Jurassic World’, ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Fast & Furious 7” are all distributed by Universal Pictures, these thrillers also all happen to be within Universal Pictures top 10 most successful films. ‘Jaws’ is the only other thriller film to be within Universal Pictures top 10 highest grossing film. These results are promising as it shows the success Universal have had in the past with the thriller genre as well as the success of film series such as ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Jurassic Park’, ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘The Fast and Furious’ and the Bond series, meaning that Universal are skilled at distributing large scale films- which isn’t particularly what our film is looking for, as it is a singular film with no intention of a series. From our primary audience research conducted, we found that out of the thrillers ‘American Psycho’, ’Taken’, ‘Black Swan’, ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘The Town’, ‘Shutter Island’, ‘Psycho’, ‘Red Riding Hood’ and ‘Inception’, the film that was liked the most was ‘Taken’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ (a Universal Pictures distributed film) which shows that this film was favourble by our target audience, which we cannot tell by the money made from the film. Additionally, the target audience range shown in these Universal Pictures made films pursue the same 15-25 range as our film-meaning that Universal have comparable experience with not only successful and favourable thriller films, but also what thrillers apply to what audience. Therefore, it is a possible that our group could use this company as a distributor.

4. Lionsgate:On the previous slide, it discusses the top 10 highest grossing thrillers. It is shown how Universal Pictures distributed 3 of the 10, similarly Lionsgate distributed 3 including ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1’, ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘ The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’. Within Lionsgate’s personal top 10 highest grossing films, the Hunger Games series are included, as well as ‘Now You See Me’, ‘Insurgent’ and ‘The Expendables’. That concludes that 7 out of the top 10 distributed by Lionsgate are of the thriller genre which were profitable in the cinematic industry. We can therefore make the assumption that Lionsgate have the best success rate out of other distribution companies when it comes to thriller films, suggesting that this company could be favorable for our own thriller film in the long run. Consequently, our group decided that Lionsgate is the perfect distributer for ‘Happy New Year’ as it also has some success with, not only multiple thriller films but other important genres to our film, like extremely popular slasher horror such as the ‘Saw’ series, ‘American Psycho’ and ‘Texas Chainsaw’ which is also promising for our horror sub-genre. Lionsgate would chose out film to distribute because their distributed films meet much of our criteria within our thriller, including slasher steroetypes of knifes for weapons, the connotations of red and black, and the assumed character of the ‘final girl’.

DIS TR IBU T I NG PL ATFO RMS -ONL INE

1. Netflix: Netflix is a provider of streaming TV shows and films, with more than 60 million worldwide subscribers and more than 3 million in the UK alone. Netflix is available to stream on PC and Mac through browsers, on game consoles such as PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U and Wii, on Smart TVs, on select Blu-ray players from Samsung, Panasonic, Phillips, Apple TV, Virgin Media TiVo boxes and media streamers from Roku and Western Digital, plus Android devices, iPad, iPhone, Amazon Fire TV and certain Youview boxes. With such widely accessible streaming options, Netflix would allow our film to be easily viewed, and could gain recognition due to its availability. The popularity of Netflix is growing considerably, with its viewing numbers passing popular U.S TV networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS and it causing the decline of once popular online streaming websites like BBC Iplayer with its viewers dropped by 72 million since 2014. Netflix doesn’t release official viewing statistics, but its known that Netflix has a higher success rate with TV shows rather than films and the most popular show after a report conducted by ‘Luth Research’ is ‘House of Cards’, with ‘Daredevil’ catching up along with other Netflix originals such as ‘Jessica Jones’ and Orange is the new black’. Therefore, it can be suggested that the crime, action and drama genres are the most popular on Netflix, not thrillers. Consequently, the thriller genre isn’t at its most successful on Netflix, which implies that our thriller would be at its most successful on this provider, as well as the fact that Netflix has more variety and popularity when it comes to TV shows rather than film.

2. Amazon Prime Instant Video:There has always been a competitive nature between Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video for streaming films and TV shows, however its known that there is a considerable difference in selective content. For example, alike Netflix, Amazon prime Instant Video have their original shows such as ‘Mr Robot’ which has already won 2 Golden Globes along with its first season. Similarly to Netflix, Amazon has its long list of ways to streaming films and TV but pushes ahead due to its many Amazon streaming outlets. However, there more advantages to Amazon’s service as it allows for films and TV to be downloaded on iPhones, iPad and Android devices for watching online. Streaming for Amazon Prime Instant Video has tripled over the last year and is in third place in streaming views after YouTube and Netflix. It is also known for its much wider selection of films to view compared to Netflix, with popular films (including those highly rated thrillers) such as ‘Nightcrawler’, ’12 years a slave’, ‘Gravity’ and ‘The Imitation Game’. Therefore, because of the widely selective films of many genres, both new and old, our film may be more successful on Amazon Prime Instant Video.