A month away from the June 30 expiration of SAG-AFTRA’s collective bargaining settlement with the AMPTP, indie movies are in a panic.
With SAG’s negotiating committee calling for a strike authorization vote, producers are caught in an infinite loop of existential disaster. They’re toggling between a scramble to get cameras rolling, make minute-to-minute choices about persevering with prep work, or making the decision to push begin dates till — fingers crossed — a strike is averted.
“I’m on an emergency name nearly every single day about whether or not to push a film, whether or not to maintain spending cash and see what occurs,” one leisure lawyer informed IndieWire. “Independently financed motion pictures, it’s very arduous. These are actual individuals placing in actual cash. It’s not like a studio isn’t actual cash, however it’s totally different sorts of dangers.”
For indie movies, these dangers requires that financing be secured by completion guarantors and so they aren’t serious about ready to see what occurs on the finish of June. The leisure lawyer stated that inside the first few days of Cannes, no less than six totally different European productions had been placed on maintain as a result of bond firms had been afraid to take the dangers related to a piece stoppage. One other gross sales agent out of Cannes stated he met with a financier who felt he had “the final bonded challenge,” which might begin this week and conclude simply earlier than the present contract expires.
Deadline reported that “The Island,” the newest movie from Pawel Pawlikowski (“Chilly Warfare”) starring Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, was on maintain as a result of it couldn’t safe a completion bond. A person with data of the manufacturing confirmed to IndieWire that it was on maintain, however would-be guarantor Movie Funds Inc. didn’t return IndieWire’s requests for remark.
A movie finance government defined that if an organization like Movie Funds, the most important guarantor within the trade, is anxious, so is everybody else. Virtually any indie film with a pending bond is probably going run into the identical difficulty. Most of the tasks have locked scripts, however it’s the specter of a DGA or SAG work stoppage that wants readability. In the event you’re not beginning principal images proper now, few financiers need to danger being shut down halfway by way of manufacturing.
“When you have a shoot that goes past the June 30 deadline and even shut, you’re not going to have the ability to get a bond. It’s so simple as that,” the gross sales agent stated. “There’s simply no sensible method.”
At its most elementary stage, the completion bond ensures a movie might be delivered to a distributor and that loans are repaid. The bond firm additionally vets a movie’s finances to ensure it’s adequate to pay again all prices and can construct in a contingency, roughly 10 % of the general finances, in case something goes unsuitable earlier than the bond firm is on the hook for prices. Studios don’t have these issues, until a movie is independently financed; the studio manages these considerations in home.
Completion bonds are like earthquake insurance coverage: It’s costly, and the percentages of utilizing it are very slim, however to not have that safety in opposition to a finances over a couple of million {dollars} is to court docket disaster. Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” (1988) had its bond known as in and was taken over by Movie Funds after the finances ballooned by over $20 million. “Highlander II: The Quickening” (1991) additionally had a bond known as when it went $10 million over finances.
An notorious instance of a movie and not using a bond was David O. Russell’s 2008 manufacturing “Nailed,” which was financed by the troubled Capitol Movies. After IATSE shut down the movie a number of instances over unpaid crew, Russell and producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher left the manufacturing and Capitol went into chapter 11 in 2010. It was launched in 2015 below the title “Unintentional Love” with a directorial pseudonym, Stephen Greene.
As a second lawyer defined, a strike might be thought of a drive majeure and received’t be excluded as a danger — however whereas it’d delay a movie’s supply date, the bond firm would nonetheless be on the hook for any shutdown prices.
One boutique movie bond guarantor who spoke to IndieWire stated his firm granted bonds for tasks which are beginning imminently, and even ones with wrap dates after the SAG contract’s expiration. Some producers, the guarantor stated, are keen to take the chance even with the excessive prices (and, the related insurance coverage premiums).
Whereas American producers have been making ready for a piece stoppage for a while, the primary leisure lawyer suspected that European producers — like these for “The Island” — have been caught off guard.
“It’s surprising, however that’s what’s occurring,” the lawyer stated. “In the event you’re the financier and you must pay for prep and your bond’s about to shut, all the things’s tremendous, after which immediately this occurs, lots of people are shedding a variety of the cash they had been paying on prep.”
There may be the surface chance, nonetheless unlikely, that an impartial manufacturing may persuade SAG to supply a strike waiver, a lot because the Tony Awards negotiated with the WGA. Very small impartial tasks unaffiliated with the AMPTP may try to make an interim settlement with SAG, during which firms conform to phrases totally different than the prevailing settlement. A rep for SAG-AFTRA didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“We’ve been by way of these intervals earlier than and we’ve bonded many movies which were threatened with strikes or throughout strikes, some bonded with the guilds themselves,” the guarantor stated. “It doesn’t imply each impartial movie goes to be shut down, however it definitely creates havoc within the trade.”
