The Crooked Truth as to How and Why this Disaster was Made

HOW THE TELEFILM GAME IS PLAYED IN CANADA

Noticed a little criticism of my dose of reality with regards to how films get made here in Canada, so I thought a primer is in order:

Actually, MEN WITH BROOMS and the strategy behind it is a perfect example of how the game is played.

How many times have we seen this touted as a "success story" in Canada? It's completely ridiculous. It failed miserably. It failed to return its investment in Canadian theatres no matter how much hype was put into it. Trying to sell it as a Leslie Neilson movie wasn't enough once people got a load of what a dud it was. It failed to make sales anywhere else either, as nobody would pick it up for distribution anywhere. Nobody would take it outside of Canada! Video sales were a flop.

In hard numbers:

Budget: 7.5 million.
Advertising: 1.1 million
Total: 8.6 million Canadian put into this film.

Box Office return: 4.3 million Canadian

There are many places across the net you can verify these numbers. Here's just one of dozens with regard to budget and marketing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/entertainment/film/1867280.stm

Now keep in mind that as a rule of thumb, we divide the gross in half to get some sort of idea of what the net is on a film. So for MEN WITH BROOMS, the actual take is 2.15 Canadian coming back from the film.

So, doing the simplest of math while being removed by the smokescreen of hype and using the facts, we see that the "successful" "hit" Canadian comedy (and I use that comedy term lightly) actually LOST approximately… let me repeat that … LOST …

$ 6.45 MILLION DOLLARS.

Now the you have a little better perspective on that, let's talk about the REWARD that Mr. Lantos and his friends get for making a money losing disaster like that -- because the logic of business DOES NOT APPLY in our game of Telefilm funding. In the US he'd be jacked. He'd have one hell of a time getting money to make another film that can't even return a third of its production budget! Especially considering his history of this performance which is overwhelming.

You know what he gets instead? A Telefilm Envelope which he spend in any way he wishes to use as a stake to make more money losing disasters with his friend Mr. Egoyan. Because if you read Telefilm's guidelines, and research this stuff at their site, you will see that they hand out multi-million dollar envelopes based on domestic box office. As we've got a hopeless English film industry dominated by the Canadian Film Mafia, we end up with MEN WITH BROOMS at the top of the English Canada heap for its year as it has pretty much no competition! It doesn't matter at all with regards to profitability or viability of the product.

See, the concept being used is NOT about making a profitable film and paying back the investment from the Canadian Taxpayer. Not even remotely. If it WERE about making a profitable film, then it would be more likely that the makers of these films would be inclined to avoid Telefilm funding with its restrictions and cuts in eventual profitability. People like Egoyan and Lantos would follow a path more like that of the makers of the GINGER SNAPS sequels. That film actually being a film that made money and meant that the production company was free to make a choice and did the right thing -- moved toward self-sufficiency and self-supporting filmmaking.

But the name of this game is securing Telefilm funds so that more investment capital can be raised and large producer fees can be collected. It's all about big whopping producer and director fees right off the top of the budget. In my opinion, this is what Egoyan's executive producer involvement in bigger budget Canadian disasters like FOOLPROOF and SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD is all about. He contacted the director of FOOLPROOF to congratulate him on the dud TREED MURRAY because he had a handle on Alliance Atlantis's interest in making FOOLPROOF and wanted a piece of the pie that was coming up. Which he got right off the top of the budget. Likely his name attracted even more investment capital. The cult of personality and all that silliness…

This film, WHERE THE TRUTH LIES, will never make back its investment. But, with a great deal of hype behind it, disguised no doubt as a Hollywood film, it will make a couple million at the Canadian box office and secure future Telefilm Envelopes for Egoyan and company for more financial disasters.

Another even more underhanded variation on this game has happened with the paid for by the Canadian Taxpayer MuchMusic commercial called GOING THE DISTANCE. It's even more despicable, in my opinion, since CityTV/CHUM certainly doesn't need to go in and suck up Telefilm money away from sincere upcoming filmmakers. This fiasco screams for a public inquiry.

This is a crucial element of what's wrong with the system as it exists and why it is such a failure at doing what it should be doing: making economically viable films. And because it's my money, I'll be as critical as I wanna be. It's time for somebody to speak up.

There, a primer on how the game is played. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that, but it should give you a more realistic perspective on what a "successful" film is in Canada, and what the players are really up to.