Indie Blues

Sundance Channel, long rumored as a target for acquisition, has indeed been sold—to CableVision, owners of Rainbow Media, which, in turn, owns IFC and AMC. CableVision paid $496 million for the Channel, whose previous owners were NBC Universal, CBS Showtime and Robert Redford. Time will tell whether such an acquisition will strengthen the Channel, since it’s distinguished its brand with such series as The Staircase, Iconoclasts, Transgeneration and Nimrod Nation and such initiatives as The Green. Such a strong slate could impel IFC and AMC to step up their respective games. But then again, any acquisition implies a significant adjustment to a different corporate culture for the acquired entity, as well as a concomitant consolidation of resources (read: layoffs and budget cuts) for the acquirer. Here’s the story from Variety:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117985215.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

In another tale of the perils of consolidation, Time Warner, which had shuttered up operations at New Line/Fine Line a couple of months ago, announced that it would close Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, as well. Not that either of those division were chock full of docs—March of the Penguins was one of the few nonfiction titles between the two—but what does this mean for the future of specialty titles? Will Sony Pictures Classics, Fox Searchlight and Paramount Vantage be next on the chopping block? If docs are henceforth to be marketed, packaged and released with the same tools and strategies as with studios releases, my guess is that these docs will either die a quicker death or they’ll be taken out of the hands of the filmmakers and into the hands of MBA-trained moguls and re-worked beyond recognition. Here’s a report from Variety:
http://www.variety.com/VR1117985299.html

And amid reports of the troubled financial conditions of THINKFilm and Capitol Films surrounding the halted production of Nailed, the relatively muted release of Then She Found Me, and the unpaid fees for Alex Gibney for his Taxi to the Dark Side, one has to speculate whether THINKFilm’s appetite for docs may have been a tad too voracious, in the face of the box office slump of 06 and 07. For much of this decade, the company has been a true friend of docs, and in the early going, had some genuine hits with Spellbound, The Aristocrats, Born Into Brothels and The Story of the Weeping Camel. But things have been quiet since then; THINKFilm’s best performing doc, In the Shadow of the Moon, performed way below expectations. One has to see if two summer releases, Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World and Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, will help restore some luster and luchre.

Discovery Films is another possible casualty, according to AJ Schnack's blog. Discovery Films came of age in partnership with Lionsgate for Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man. But then there was In the Shadow of the Moon. Discovery, too, is banking on Encounters at the End of the World, and another lauded doc feature, James Marsh’s Man on Wire, which Magnolia is releasing this summer. Perhaps this is the ongoing extreme makeover of the David Zaslav era, which began with the exit of Billy Campbell, one of the prime movers of Discovery Films in the first place.