Drew Turney
If you’ve never heard the name 1984 Private Defense Contractors, make yourself familiar with it soon. Run by 29 year old Hollywood wunderkind Adi Shankar, the company is behind a string of low-fi releases that have become gargantuan hits including Liam Neeson versus wolves drama ”The Grey” and Mark Wahlberg military drama ”Lone Survivor”, which screamed up the box office in the US to earn $114m from a $40m budget.
Recently interviewed about his company’s outlook on the future, Shankar had something interesting to say about the VOD market that producers and distributors should keep in mind.
“It’s a unique time for cinema,” he said. “It’s going to be even more this way in the future, but because of our access to technology everywhere, the internet everywhere, multiple streams everywhere, when you release a movie you’re not just competing against the other movies in theatres, you’re effectively competing against everything ever made. If you’re making a Sylvester Stallone movie today, you’re competing with every Sylvester Stallone movie that exists.”
In case you didn’t see the other recent news, Microsoft’s Xbox is jumping into original programming, with a string of episodes about the digital revolution coming soon to Xbox live. First up from writer/director Zak Penn (one of the scribes behind ”The Avengers”) is the story of how Atari Corp supposedly buried millions of unsold game cartridges from he failed ET tie-in game in a New Mexico landfill in 1983 – including excavating the site to try and find them.
On Demand now, ”Adult World” (https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/adult-world/id797279322?uo=4&at=10lorC
), starring Emma Roberts and John Cusack. Roberts plays a university graduate certain she’s destined for literary stardom who takes a job in a porn bookstore when poverty threatens.
Also ”Blood Ties” (https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/blood-ties/id826371589?uo=4&at=10lorC). Starring Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Marion Cotillard, Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana, Matthias Schoenaerts and James Caan, it’s a thriller about two brothers on opposite sides of the law who can’t let go as easily as they want.
There’s another great cast, including James Franco and Catherine Keener in ”Maladies” (https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/maladies/id824777910?uo=4&at=10lorC). Franco’s another tortured artist as a 1960’s soap star trying to restart his floundering creative career.
