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Big dollar box office expectations have buyers drooling in anticipation of the release of a $10 million family action/adventure film about a boy who discovers a CYBERSUIT and stops the evil Broodwarriors from taking over the Universe. The 12-year-old hero turned Warrior of Waverly Street is Joseph Mazzello, who received raves as the T-rex-loving pre-teen dyno-expert of Jurassic Park and the AIDS stricken friend's friend in The Cure and the wishmaker in Three Wishes. The latest Jennie Lew Tugend production is not a tale of a boy and his whale (as in Tugend's Free Willy and Free Willy II ), rather it's a story of a boy and the courage he develops after encountering a 7-foot-tall Cybersuit, the creation of a gentle alien race. Trimark Pictures doled out the money for the project after director Manny Coto (The Ticking Man ) sent a good spec script and packaged the project with Mazzello, Tugend, and the Oscar nominated FX crew of Tom Burman and Bari Dreiband-Burman (Close Encounters and Waterworld ) along with animatronics guru Doug Beswick, who provided elements for both Aliens and The Addams Family. Trimark Pictures International Senior V.P. Sergio Aguero confidently admits that Warrior of Waverly Street is his company's most ambitious project to date and is quick to acknowledge that its highly qualified team has "created an incredibly creative, amazing, wonderful, universal story."
Aguero's AFM suite has been busy for days. In the front room, Alia Yunis, International Division Marketing Manager, along with several other members of the Trimark team, assist buyers by showing trailers, movie fragments, props and one-sheets from the many projects on Trimark's AFM slate. The front room buyers are treated to every courtesy and get every question answered, with the exception of cost figures, which are the topic of all the conversations in the back room, where Chairman Mark Amin, Aguero and newly upped Director of International Sales Sergei Yershov are doing what Trimark does best: closing international licensing deals for its increasingly diverse slate of pictures.
One word best describes Aguero: focus. He's got two buyers waiting (all right, they're still watching a Pinocchio Syndrome trailer about a wooden demon doll that is given as a gift to a lawyer's daughter) and he's responding to a caller who is trying to set a meeting before the market ends, but when he starts talking about Trimark's movies, his deep-set eyes start to brighten and you know he needs you to know that he truly believes in the importance of the story. Though he's not an acquisitions exec, he starts off by asserting that the way Trimark successfully produces a film is to think about the global marketplace from the first moment packaging is discussed. Domestic sales must be considered, a theatrical release should be the target and the demands of the international marketplace -- in the form of talent selection -- must be taken into account. Aguero says that Trimark is "committed to being a leading independent theatrical distributor in the future with more productions on the way and more films making it into the can that will be released theatrically in the U.S."
Aguero breaks down Trimark's current operations into three distinct product lines. The first segment can be best described as niche-driven projects, often characterized by high-concepts with or without named stars. These films can cater to audiences craving horror, urban black, or high-concept family films (such as Waverly Street ). Each of these films will have wide-niche based release and will have great cross-over potential. Aguero describes this first type of product approach as the way New Line operated about three to four years ago. Each of these films will enjoy a $2 - $12 million budget.
The second type of projects will involve platform releases of films acquired through negative pick-ups by Trimark's yet unnamed (and probably officially unveiled at Cannes) new specialized division, headed by ex-Goldwyn distribution head Ray Price, in conjunction with Trimark acquisitions V.P. Bobby Rock. Price has stated that the films in this segment of Trimark's plan will be broader based than films normally called "specialized," and yet Price doesn't like the moniker "art film" either. Instead, he's been quoted as saying "urban sophisticated" might be a proper description for the projects he anticipates launching under the new division. Aguero says these films will have budgets ranging from two to six million and that Trimark will provide full financing and handle all international rights. Aside from gaining the benefit of Price's years of experience, Trimark's new specialized division also has the great benefit of the company's solid knowledge of the very fluid international market.
Aguero described the third Trimark project category as "high-end video with TV premiere possibilities." These films would include Trimark's AFM debut The Dentist from horror guru Brian Yuzna (Return of the Living Dead III, Re-Animator ) starring Corbin Bernsen as an ordinary Beverly Hills dentist who has a passion for "drilling up murder" as his wife, patients and unfortunate others soon discover. Trimark's HBO premiere movie Frank and Jessie also fits into this category. "Video isn't dead," says Aguero, "but you have to have good quality high-end films to capture the market." For example, Aguero says Germany consumes about 500 video titles a year with 200-225 of them films that received theatrical release. "This means there is no room for anything but high-end product" he said. These projects have two to five million dollar budgets.
The AFM was really a "clean-up from MIFED" for the company, according to Aguero. They plan to announce their biggest and most diverse slate of projects at Cannes. Some of the projects we may hear more about include a Jonathan Silverman and Dan Cortese romantic comedy Two Guys Talking About Girls, or a niche driven comedy with a nutcase orange-headed over the edge comic named Carrot Top called Chairman of the Board, or even a new Rusty Cundieff (Tales From the Hood, Fear of a Black Hat ) comedy about mistaken identity called Dogs, produced by Darin Scott, who also produced Love and a .45 for Trimark in 1994. Trimark continues to know its sales business well. It will have sold 80% of the world rights for most of the films now in post-production. That means that the films are licensed before they're completed. That's a position every seller would love to be in. The 20% unsold will be sold at much higher rates if any of the projects break-out or even before that, when they are premiered for the world, perhaps at Cannes.
Other titles gobbled up during the AFM include:
Trimark's new division will be looking at projects in all stages, from script to completed production. English language projects are the immediate focus, but they won't ignore foreign language event pictures, such as La Femme Nikita or Il Postino. Even though Price knows the English language adds value to any product in most markets, it obviously doesn't stop him from keeping an eye out for just the right acquisition, or from meeting a talented filmmaker from outside of the U.S. The new division is expected to put out about 6 titles in its first year, increasing eventually to 12 every 12 months. Rock and Price are scouring festivals and markets for new talent and even hosted an invite only session at Sundance in January in order to introduce established filmmakers to the new Trimark arm. As Aguero suggested, the new division may propel Trimark into the position in the market vacated the past few years by Miramax and New Line when they made the move into mini-majordom. When Price's experience and compassion is mixed with Rock's pursuit of good product and input from the international sales arena, there's no doubt that Trimark will get there very soon.
Lastly, visit Trimark on the Internet at http://www.trimarkent.com. Their site is divided into interactive, movies, video and TV sections, each offering previews, reviews and descriptions of products in the Trimark library.
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