Film making: How to make small fortune from a large one

Blockbusters, franchises, corporate promos and advertising aside, most films are personal projects of their director. It's that individual who brings together a story, a cast and an army of people to make it sparkle.

A good film house is more than its catalogue of films, it's also the distribution machine that gets those films out to an eager audience anticipating it and booking tickets, and this is where marketing plays its role.

Misunderstanding your product, treating marketing as a template filling exercise and great fortunes might fail to materialize. This article is about missed opportunities from one famous film house - Hammer. Two good films that with hindsight could have turned a tidy profit.

The Anniversary (1968) came a few years after The Nanny (1965) which holds a 91% approval rating on movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on eleven reviews.

The Anniversary's estimated budget was $1,450,000, and delivered $1,352,000 in U.S. box office sales. It clearly didn't lose money. With Bette Davis a huge star it's surprising it wasn't more successful at the time and equally surprising it rarely gets screened today. Perhaps it's that it took a while for Hammer films to find their product market fit - understand what their audience wanted and they could deliver.

With so many leisure opportunities it's imperative your customer base knows what you're offering and has a desire to spend a couple of hours watching your film. Easier said than done.

Someone at the Door filmed in 1949 and released in 1950 is a sparkling comedy filmed at Oakley Court. It was in 1951 that they hired film director Terence Fisher who played a critical role in their forthcoming horror cycle so perhaps understandable that they hadn't mastered how to market films.

Had Hammer better understood the film they were promoting they would have targeted the film at audiences who like comedies by offering the film to reviewers who prefer or at least understand and appreciate comedies; there would have been no misunderstanding of what the film is about and what to expect. By targeting everyone they missed the very people who would be interested.

The Monthly Film Bulletin sums Someone at the Door well: "Comedy thriller in which sliding panels, priest-holes, ex-convicts and priceless jewels are used to conventional effect."

However The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "this is Hammer hokum of the hoariest kind. There isn't a semblance of suspense ... Not even the arrival of jewel thieves at the haunted house ... can revive one's fast-fading interest. However, there is one good wheeze, during the credit sequence, when director Francis Searle reveals that the front of the old house is merely a flat piece of scenery erected in a field."

This clearly shows the reviewer David Parkinson was ill prepared to review the film - he thought it was a suspense drama. When he comments "However, there is one good wheeze, during the [opening] credit sequence, when director Francis Searle reveals that the front of the old house is merely a flat piece of scenery erected in a field." he either didn't understand how to interpret the cues, didn't research the play it was based on, or he was mis-informed that it was a suspense/drama and unable to pivot his frame of thinking. Clear targeting would have ensured he knew enough about the film and was in a suitable frame of mind to either write a sympathetic review or pass it on to someone more suited to reviewing comedies.

The opening credits to a film set the scene for what is to follow and that opening scene is clearly one of comedy, as are the first few scenes. David notes "one good wheeze, during the credit sequence" so he recognised the comedic aspects but nevertheless reviewed it as a drama. That misinterpretation no doubt contributed significantly to reader perception. That the review was in the popular Radio Times sealed it's fate. Despite a few contemporary favourable reviews and more recently on IMDB, once a film is typecast by such a venerable institution it's hard to change. There's always a second chance, but as the bulk of a film's profits are usually from the box office or initial showings, it's unlikely to generate much residual income.

None of this affected Michael Medwin. His talents were recognised as he continued to forge a successful career and was awarded an OBE in 2005. It was mainly a lack of profit for Someone at the Door.

Having found what their audience likes, the Horror genre stuck. Like most organisations that stumble on their PMF they hardly deviated from previous successes, sadly that also meant they didn't evolve as fickle audiences shifted.

That's why Mark Ritsons article "Amazon must resist the temptation to bleed James Bond dry" struck a chord:

Barbara Broccoli knows her job and knows it well. It's thanks to her, her brother Michael G. Wilson and her father Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli that Bond films have done so well over the preceding seven decades. It takes many years to understand the craft of film making and how the many moving parts make up such an iconic franchise.

Film making can be an expensive business and the Bond franchise is no exception. No Time to Die grossed $771.2M in 2021 with a budget of $250–301M, a good return by any standards. Those who finance films expect to get a return on their investment, they may not always succeed, but they do anticipate a fair return. Ritson is right to highlight the danger of milking such a well known asset, it takes years to build up a brand, and careless handling can make a serious dent in that brand. As an example the Carry On franchise made a few duds but they quickly bounced back because the brand was strong and they kept to their core values. Bezos risks serious damage to the Bond franchise if he tries text book methods to increase value. Artistic merit, good business acumen, an abundance of money and focus groups can't make up for a lifetime working intimately with the many aspects that make a Bond film, there are just too many of them.

If there's a lesson to be learnt from The Anniversary, Someone at the Door and countless others, it's that film making is easy, turning a profit, less so.

For anyone looking for inspiration, the Doctor Who franchise might offer some insight. There are a number of screen spinoffs, some more successful than others. Tardis biscuit cutters and Dalek bubble bath are just two off the wall non screen spinoffs that are so far from the core brand that their impact is non existent whilst nevertheless turning a small profit on those trinkets. Doctor Who is a significant part of popular culture, and it has had an interesting journey, one that has seen the lead character transition from an old white man to a younger one, to a woman and recently a man of colour, something that would trash most franchises in an instant. Anything's possible with the right people behind it.

Almost everyone has an opinion and no doubt Bezos will hear more than a few. His judgement call, and now he's bought the franchise it's his call to make, will be what to do with this globally recognised asset. I wish him every success, the future of James Bond depends on it.