The film is being distributed through Freestyle Releasing (the company also responsible for “Bottle Shock”), in an arrangement orchestrated by financing and sales agency Cinetic Media. It had premiered without distribution at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival over fourteen months ago. At the time, Toronto’s co-director Cameron Bailey predicted to indieWIRE that “Welles” was definitely going to be one of the fest’s big sells.

“There’s ‘Me and Orson Welles,’” Bailey had said when asked about potential sales, “the new Richard Linklater film that I think definitely is going to be one of the hottest films - and not just because its Richard Linklater… There is this guy named Zac Efron in it as well which people seem to know and then its got this terrific performance by this guy Christian McKay who plays Orson Welles in 1937 as he’s mounting a production of ‘Julius Caesar.’ So this is a big title obviously and to have films like that premiering with us is really important.”

This suggestion was echoed in the trades, with Anne Thompson, then working for Variety suggesting it would be one of the festival’s few seven figure sales. But when the festival was said and done, “Welles” hadn’t found a home, despite receiving a warm response from critics in Toronto. So Cinetic decided to take matters into their own hands.

“What we did was basically created our own service distribution company, and then we went out and got the prints & advertising,” Cinetic head John Sloss told indieWIRE yesterday. “The reason we did that is that we knew we had a film of significant and inherent value both in terms of its quality and in terms of its cast, and we were not getting offers commensurate with that value. It didn’t really ‘end up’ at Freestyle. We put together a distribution team, and we hired Freestyle to handle distribution, meaning to book the theaters. Freestyle’s just an amazing company. They really are doing it for the right reasons, and they’re really good at what they do. They value transparency, which is something that’s very important to us.”

Sloss and Cinetic, who have been involved with every Richard Linklater film since 1991’s “Slacker,” also hired Russell Schwartz who used to head marketing at New Line, to be in charge of marketing for this project. “We think he’s one of the best people in the world at marketing high-end specialty movies,” Sloss said. “Rick has worked with him before on ‘Dazed and Confused’ and I’ve worked with him many times.”

The film is being released in the UK this Friday (where CinemaNX and Vue Theaters in the UK have joined together to basically distribute the film themselves), and will continue to expand in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Sloss said that so far, things are looking positive, and Zac Efron doesnt even appear to be the main reason.

“The film ended up skewing older, not that we expected it, it just did,” he said. “Basically, it played well to adult audiences that like sophisticated, specialized movies, which is interesting because we weren’t clear whether Zac’s younger audience would show up or not. We didn’t particularly market to them, although we didn’t preclude them. But what we saw from the first weekend is that the film hopefully will have legs among the people who support films like, say, ‘An Education.’ It turned out to be appealing to that demographic. So we’re going to pretty much stay the course this weekend, and then there will be an expansion on the following weekend. And then like many films in this situation, we’ll just sort of follow the gross. We’ll see how the numbers hold up. We’ve secured enough money to support it accordingly, and we’ll just have to see. We’ve given the film a fair shot to succeed and now a lot of it is about the film and the word of mouth it inspires.”

While “Orson Welles” is one the first examples of such a high-profile film going to the DIY route, if it proves successful, it’s going to be done a lot more in the future.

"What we do is find what we really like, buy it and then think, 'Is there a way to market this?' " says the man best known as MCA of the Beastie Boys. Then, with a small smile at once sheepish and proud, he adds, "I guess that's the opposite of what you're supposed to do."

Yauch's boldness is increasingly common among a segment of the otherwise-depressed indie-distributor world, where unlikely players with unorthodox attitudes suddenly are filling the landscape.

Execs from gay-oriented media company Here! are getting into the foreign-film business. National Geographic, best known for eat-your-vegetables nature documentaries, is snatching up Sundance dramas for theatrical release, as it did with Cherien Dabis' immigrant-themed crowd-pleaser "Amreeka." A few weeks ago, a pair of New York-based unknowns created a stir when they announced the formation of DFIS, a $100 million production and distribution entity.

Traditional players, meanwhile, are furiously trying to reinvent themselves and come up with new ideas. Case in point: Ira Deutchman and his Emerging Pictures aims to outfit art house theaters with digital projectors that will allow exhibitors to break the rigid and expensive 35mm model.

Together, they form what might be called the new indie coterie, a mixture of savvy veterans and eager newcomers who see opportunity in a specialty world where studios only have seen losses.

That players like these are even involved in the labor-intensive work of theatrical distribution -- as opposed to film financing and production, which has seen its share of interlopers through the years -- speaks not only to their seriousness but also to how much the business has been shaken up during the past year.

Do they know something everyone else doesn't?

Specialty releases always have been a sucker's bet. Even good movies usually flop, and the people behind well-intentioned deals often lose both their intentions and their shirts.

The naysaying only has intensified as key players -- first Paramount Vantage and Picturehouse and, more recently, the Weinstein Co., Senator, Yari Films and New Yorker Films -- have struggled or disappeared.

The market is too fickle, the margins too thin; only DVD can save you. And DVD is shrinking.

The stat that resonates most: Only six indie movies have cracked the $1 million mark in domestic boxoffice grosses through June, the lowest first-half number in a decade.

The indie world is keenly aware of the precariousness of its distribution options.

"Even with the best company, you have to worry when you're selling to them because they could be out of business two years later," says a producer whose DVD titles migrated from just such a bankrupt firm to a theatrical distributor, only to find months later that the distributor didn't even know it had the rights.

Still, this new class of risk-takers won't take no for an answer.

"The reason there's momentum is that as the studios have stepped out of the indie business; it doesn't mean the business isn't there," Deutchman says. "It just means it doesn't fit their business model."

He would know. Deutchman is creating a banner that will release movies digitally in unorthodox ways -- say, as a one-night special event on 500 screens instead of struggling to hold one or two theaters for several weekends.

That, he says, will better take advantage of marketing dollars and break the chokehold he sees hampering traditional indie-film releasing.

Sony Pictures Classics, IFC, Magnolia -- and now, new companies like Bob Berney's unnamed shingle -- are occupying a space between indie and specialty distribution. Their movies rarely are on 500 screens, but they can get there if necessary. If not, they have ancillary platforms to make up the difference.

In contrast, many of the new-indie entities are more niche. Startup IndieVest is raising money for P&A at the same time as production financing. Others don't even function as distributors per se.

Freestyle Releasing is a veteran of microdistribution, having existed in its current form for five years. The company doesn't distribute in the traditional way; instead of putting up P&A money, it often takes a distribution fee and books theaters.

But Freestyle can flex its muscles: Last year, it released the wine-making dramedy "Bottle Shock" and grossed more than $4 million, which practically qualifies as a tentpole in the indie world these days.

Oscilloscope, a full-service distributor, has ramped up relatively quickly, buying movies out of nearly every major festival.

It took the 2008 Festival de Cannes critics darling "Wendy and Lucy" to a respectable $1 million in domestic gross and made a stir when it bought a Michel Gondry movie, "The Thorn in the Heart," out of Cannes last month.

"It has surprised me a little how many movies we've bought," Yauch says. "I don't think we expected to find as many movies as we like."

Indeed, many indie execs offer a variation on this refrain: Production has, until recently, been cranking at full tilt, and with fewer traditional distributors, it's a buyers' market. Freestyle proved the point several weeks ago when it came aboard to release "My One and Only, a Renee Zellweger romantic comedy that just a few months ago had been seeking a studio deal.

The supply is so deep even promising titles can sit without a distributor. For instance, the midbudget Catherine Zeta-Jones romantic comedy "The Rebound," one of the Film Department's first productions, hasn't found a suitor willing to pay the right price, though it could go with a Freestyle-type service deal.

Another new template is Music Box, a firm with just a few employees, mostly in Chicago. Last year, it managed to take "Tell No One," a 2-year-old French thriller no one wanted, spend next to nothing on the acquisition and marketing and turn it into a $6 million-grossing word-of-mouth hit.

Lest anyone think the studio specialty divisions aren't paying attention, Miramax chief Daniel Battsek said at the time, "One's competitive spirit is slightly piqued when someone else does well with a movie, and you think, 'Why didn't we have that?' " Miramax has since bought remake rights.

In some cases, these firms are literally filling the void of the struggling companies: Freestyle has picked up the Weinstein Co.'s "Midnight Man" and will release it as "The Collector."

"In many cases we're the first resort," Freestyle president Mark Forde says. "In others, a company that has a financial situation, like Weinstein does, and needs to sell off movies and focus on their core slate -- that's OK with us. It's more for us to choose from."

Paul Colichman, who runs Here! Media and its label Regent Releasing (soon to be renamed Here! Releasing), says his company recognizes the problems in indie distribution but hopes its agglomeration of such gay-themed media as social-networking site Gay.com, print mag the Advocate and the Here! TV network can help solve those problems.

"One reason it's hard to reach the specialty niche is because it's hard to reach smart people," he says. "But through our assets, we have access to millions and millions of people who are tastemakers and who are seven times more likely to go to a specialty film than their straight counterparts."

The company recenty used its platforms to release Japan's foreign-language Oscar winner "Departures" and art house title "Tokyo Sonata."

Still, no matter the cleverness of the approach, the odds are daunting. Even in good times, the indie world is littered with the corpses of smart, driven entities not dissimilar to this new group, a point that isn't lost on those attempting to break the mold.

"We'll see how many of these companies are here for the long haul and really build something," Yauch says. "And we'll see how many just want to flip it and make a quick buck."

Story centers on a handyman and ex-con who aims to repay a debt to his ex-wife by robbing his new employer's country home.

Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, the writing team behind "Saw IV," "Saw V" and "Saw VI," penned "The Collector." Dunstan directs.

Project's produced by Fortress Features and Imaginarium Entertainment Group.

Josh Stewart, Daniella Alonso, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Roth, Madeline Zima, Karley Scott-Collins, Robert Wisdom and Juan Fernandez star

Source: http://www.variety.com

Josh Stewart, Daniella Alonso, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Roth, Madeline Zima, Karley Scott-Collins, Robert Wisdom and Juan Fernandez star.

The story follows a handyman who wants to rob a family’s country house, only to discover something more sinister already happening there.

Liddell will work with Freestyle Releasing for a July 31 launch.

Dunstan and Melton have written Feast (Project Greenlight) and Saw IV, Saw V and the upcoming Saw VI.

“Marcus and Patrick have come up with a unique twist on the home invasion thriller that we think will have people gripping their seats,” said Liddell Entertainment president Mickey Liddell. “With its stylized blend of action and horror, the movie delivers on every level.”

“In a summer boasting fist-fighting robots and 3-D floating homes, Mickey and his team are more than up to the challenge of delivering an adult horror-thriller to moviegoers seeking a shock to the system,” added Dunstan and Melton. “We’re beyond lucky to have such a passionate force behind a film we can’t wait to unleash.”
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Source: http://www.screendaily.com

Freestyle will release August 21 in New York and Los Angeles, followed by a September 4 expansion in 20 markets across the US.

Richard Loncraine directed from Charlie Peters’ script.

Aaron Ryder and Norton Herrick produced.

The film premiered at the 2009 Berlinale where it received a special jury mention.

Zellweger plays Anne Devereaux, who leaves her philandering bandleader husband in New York and takes her two teenage sons on a road trip in search of a perfect new partner.

My One And Only is loosely based on the early life of actor George Hamilton.

“We at Freestyle are thrilled to be releasing My One and Only, which is a great story and a terrific piece of filmmaking,” said Freestyle co-presidents Susan Jackson and Mark Borde in a joint statement. “We look forward to helping audiences discover this personal, human-scale movie and its great performances through a tiered rollout, and we think that August 21 will be the right date to begin that - an early kickoff to the fourth-quarter series of quality films aimed at adults.”

“I’m very proud of My One and Only and look forward to sharing it with American audiences,” added Norton Herrick. “I feel that the film is in good hands with the team at Freestyle, who really ‘get’ the movie and will help audiences discover this very special film in the months to come.”

Herrick presents a Raygun production in association with Merv Griffin Entertainment and George Hamilton Productions.

Vicki Dee Rock co-produced and the co-executive producers are Ronnie Ward, Robert Pritchard and Robert Kosberg. The executive producers are George Hamilton, Elayne Herrick and Michael Herrick.

Herrick Entertainment is also working with Broadway’s West Side Story, Exit The King and 9 to 5.

Freestyle’s past releases include The Illusionist, The Haunting of Molly Hartley and Bottle Shock.

Source: http://www.screendaily.com