![]() ![]() Ortenberg left to serve a short stint at The Weinstein Company as president of theatrical films before starting One Way Out Media, a consulting company that had clients including River Road’s Bill Pohlad. Over the years, he held the title of president of distribution and marketing for Hemdale, and then started the Los Angeles office of Lionsgate where he worked 13 years. ![]() ![]() Ortenberg began his movie career in the Columbia Pictures back office in San Francisco in 1985 as an assistant cashier. More bidders means a more competitive marketplace. Makers of those films have received less in minimum guarantees due to a bottoming-out in the business. Some of the companies engage in production, but Open Road’s intention to get involved in script-stage pre-buys puts it in direct competition with them. Dealing in 2000-screen releases isn’t cheap the P&A costs on each are a minimum $20 million, distributors say. Distributors like Roadside Attractions and Anchor Bay have been getting more ambitious in their acquisitions as well. Others include the Peter Schlessel- and Bob Berney-run shingle FilmDistrict, a reinvigorated Weinstein Company, Focus Features, Lionsgate, Summit Entertainment, Sony’s Screen Gems and Relativity Media. Open Road adds another player to a distribution field targeting wide-release films. “It include all genres, from action and thrillers, dramas and comedies, and a little bit of horror but probably not an abundance of it,” he said. Recent successes that would fit the model of films Ortenberg and his small team will look for include the remake The Mechanic or The Last Exorcism. My experience shows those pictures will be available.” Within those parameters, we will look for films we can acquire at an attractive price and market and distribute in a cost-effective manner to as broad an audience as possible. We will not produce, we will not develop, but we are open to pre-buying from script stage or acquiring a completed film. We will be an acquisitions-based company. “What’s better than to address this by filling those screens with great movies and stories looking for distribution? These films will be playing in all theater chains nationwide, and we will be competing for the same films that other midsize distribution companies go after. “At its core, Open Road is a content play that recognizes that in many weeks of the year, AMC and Regal have excess capacity in their theaters,” Ortenberg told Deadline. Ortenberg said he was unsure exactly how those promotional opportunities would manifest themselves. While the largest allocation of P&A is TV commercials, Open Road product has the potential benefit of in-house promotion for films that will get at least 25% of theater penetration in AMC and Regal theaters. Just recently, AMC and Regal were among the chains that said they would not give screens to films that DirectTV wants to show on VOD four to six weeks after theatrical release. This venture gives the chains a little opportunity to push back: When those same studios supply stinkers that barely pack theaters or after their big films are mostly played out and hanging on to squeeze out those final drops of theatrical revenue, AMC and Regal can conceivably allocate screens to its own product. Theater chains like AMC and Regal have railed as big studios continue to shrink theatrical windows on their event films. (Regal is slightly larger) and between them are responsible for about 31% of the theaters in the U.S., doing about 45% of weekly business. What’s unusual here is that two theater chains are behind what Ortenberg termed a “straight content play.” The two entities control between 5,000 and 6,000 venues each in the U.S. Open Road joins a crowding field of companies targeting wide-release finished films. The move had been expected since the Sundance Film Festival in January. “Once we’re up and running, we will be distributing 8 to 10 films per year, and possibly more,” Ortenberg said. He expects to have three pictures out starting this fall. Distribution veteran Tom Ortenberg will run the company. The country’s two largest theatrical exhibition chains, AMC and Regal, this morning officially launched Open Road, a venture that will acquire and distribute films that can play in wide release on about 2000 screens. ![]()
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