THINKFilm, once heralded, now beleaguered, continues its summer of discontent, facing a legion of angry, yet-to-be paid filmmakers and hoping that the recently released (and perhaps aptly titled) Encounters at the End of the World and the soon-to-be-released Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired will pull the distributor out of the depths of debt. indieWIRE’s Anthony Kauffman talks to, among others, THINKFilm head Mark Urman  about how this all went down.

http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2008/06/as_thinkfilms_c.html

But THINKFilm’s woes are part of the larger picture of the state of theatrical distribution for documentaries over the past three years. Here’s an assessment from John Horn of the Los Angeles Times.

One comment: I would differ with Horn on his contention that Young@Heart has been a box office disappointment. Right now, the film holds the number 25 spot among the all-time grossers, according to boxofficemojo.com. If the film surpasses $4 million, it’ll move up to the Number 20 spot. Given that Young@Heart was Fox Searchlight’s first documentary, they really should have calibrated their expectations. After all, over the past 26 years, only 76 docs have surpassed the $1 million mark—an average of about three docs a year.