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Hit them with your best shot: Independent filmmakers hit the big time without big-studio help

Stories by Alexandra Twin
Daily Arts Editor

It all started again in 1992 with a little film called "The Crying Game." While fat, balding, Hollywood bigwigs sat around a buffet table trying to figure out whether Demi Moore in a slinky outfit or Arnold Schwarzeneggar with a gun would sell more lunch-boxes, the small, modestly-budgeted independent film quietly took the stage. Granted, it had a hook: "Don't Give away the film's big secret" read every newspaper ad. Every gushing movie critic quivered as he struggled to explain the film's baffling success.

The same might be said for the whole slew of recent underdog movies to quietly kick the respective butts of their mainstream counterparts. Some just see it as a natural retaliation, the result of mass-quantity, cardboard actions and comedies losing out to mass-quality, smaller, more personal endeavors, while others just see it as good luck for the smaller, no-money companies. Regardless of what you chalk it up to, it is not an overstatement to point out that the last three years have seen something of a quiet revolution in movies. America's favorite past-time may be baseball, but the second is the movies, and lately, they've been getting a major face-lift.

Much like "The Crying Game," this year's sleeper crime thriller with a twist was young director Bryan Singer's surprise hit "The Usual Suspects." Featuring a no-star cast of non-babes like Kevin Spacey, Kevin Pollak, Benecio del Toro, Gabriel Byrne, a middle Baldwin brother (with a nasty Caesar hair-do) and various others, the film (made for next to nothing) started off small and eventually ballooned out across the country. "The Usual Suspects" roped in the respect and greenbacks of a good half of America due to patience, persistence, good word of mouth and the internet.

While not as profitable as the generically weepy "While You Were Sleeping" or the generically kooky "Batman Forever," "The Usual Suspects" did manage to blow the lid off any theory that said moviegoers wanted to sit around and watch Sylvester Stallone in a glorified leather muumuu being followed around by former Saturday Night Live-cast member Rob "Makin' Copies" Schneider uttering lame-o one liners. "Judge Dredd" was a stinker.

Similarly, the current, twisted love story "Leaving Las Vegas" (no connection to Sheryl Crow's song, thank God) found itself the unwitting darling of the movie industry in a matter of months. Shot for a mere 3.5 million bucks, the film has already earned twice that much in box-office sales. Not bad for a story about a suicidal drunkard and a whore. Not bad for a film that almost didn't get made. The film's screenwriter and director, Mike Figgis, spoke last night about his experiences working on the film and how after the last big-budget film that he had worked on had bombed (1991's "Mr. Jones,") it was extremely difficult for him to get any support for his downbeat story. The Hollywood execs just didn't think that it would sell.

Beyond a work of art's selling point, it almost goes without saying that the less money involved in a project, the more freedom there is for its participants. The less capital at stake, the less limitations on pure experimentation. In other words, more often than not, the cheaper the film, the higher the quality.

Not only are the new batch of semi-mainstream independent films generally of a higher quality than those from the bigger studios, but because they don't cater to stars' ridiculous egos (translates: paychecks) they are able to keep costs down and, therefore, not lose as much money as bigger studios routinely do.

According to a recent "Entertainment Weekly" poll, the average Hollywood studio film costs about $34 million to produce and at least another $10 million to advertise and promote. The average independent film costs $1-3 million to make and another million or two to promote. Obviously, you don't need to be a marketing genius to figure out which scenario is more profitable. Yet, somehow the bald guys with the bucks just don't seem to get it. Weighing in at an astounding $175 million (before the advertising), this summer's "Waterworld" was by far the biggest "whoops" Hollywood has ever uttered. The recent Pirate-Schlock flick "Cutthroat Island" from producer-director Renny Harlin and actor Geena Davis was a comparative lightweight at $92 million (before advertising). It was such a disaster at the box-office that Carolco, the mid-sized company that released it has now gone belly-up in the sun.

Often starting from the East Coast (particularly New York City) independent film scene and then moving on towards the festival circuit and hopefully, eventual national distribution, independent film has burrowed enough of a niche into the status quo to almost warrant being called a new genre.

In 1995, it was "Crumb," Terry Zwigoff's modestly-budgeted documentary about legendary cartoonist R. Crumb and "Georgia," Ulu Grosbard's trailblazing drama of sibling rivalry set against the back-drop of the music industry that used modest budgets to reap decent rewards. In addition, it was Sundance Film Festival (see side bar) hero, writer-director Ed Burns who scraped up the $26,000 necessary to make a rough, black and white comedy called "The Brothers McMullen"; it went on to earn $10 million in American theaters alone and was even briefly a top 10 film of the week. In 1994, it was Sundance Film Festival hero, writer-director Kevin Smith who scraped up the $23,000 necessary to make his black-and-white comedy, "Clerks." This movie went on to earn $3 million in American theaters alone. In 1993, it was Sundance Film Festival heroes, director Bryan Singer and writer-director Nick Gomez, whose "Public Access" and "Laws of Gravity," respectively, were both made in the under $100,000 range and went on to reap big rewards for their companies. In 1992, it was Sundance hero writer-director Hal Hartley whose modestly-budgeted "Trust" went on to earn a couple million at the box office. In 1991, it was Richard Linklater with "Slacker" and Allison Anders with "Gas, Food, Lodging." In the '80s it was filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Gus Van Sant. In the '60s and 1970, it was filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Arthur Penn, Dennis Hopper and John Cassevetes. The presence has always been there; it's only recently started raking in the cash.

Small, truly independent companies like Circle ("Raising Arizona"), First Look ("The Secret of Roan Inish"), I.R.S. ("Gas, Food, Lodging"), Seventh Art ("Risk"), Strand Releasing ("Totally F**cked Up"), Tara ("The Vanishing"), Hemdale ("Bright Angel") and Trimark ("Federal Hill") operate without a father-figure, big-studio to support them. The "fake indies," namely Miramax ("Georgia"), Grammercy (" The Usual Suspects"), Fine Line ("Double Happiness"), Goldwyn ("Go Fish), Sony Pictures Classics ("Amateur") are all "indies" under the support of a large, corporate studio. Not only has the demand for these kinds of films grown, but the capacity to distribute them, as well.