Marissa Román Griffith, Christopher Maddox Pen Article on Shifting Global Film Financing Market

“Going Global,” an article by Akin Gump entertainment partner Marissa Román Griffith and associate Christopher Maddox on the changing market for film financing, was published by Corporate LiveWire.

The article discusses how these changes, specifically, the decline of pre-sales, have moved producers to rely more heavily on international co-production arrangements for funding. As a consequence, the authors write, filmmakers now feel the need to “create content that can appeal to a global audience,” an impulse frustrated by the elusiveness of a formula for finding global, cross-cultural success.

The authors lay out the issues accompanying the decline of pre-sales—a model that “is currently less effective than it was during the peak of the home video market”—then discuss international co-production arrangements, both formal and informal, as well as issues with co-productions (using recent China-U.S. co-production—and money-loser—The Great Wall as an example).

They conclude by noting that, with the decline of pre-sales and the absence of a clear path to global appeal, “co-producers must be cognizant of their partners’ creative expertise and the cultural nuances of the varying locales. Despite their issues, international co-production arrangements offer producers a strategy to obtain necessary funding, access creative talent from across the world and create opportunities to produce great films.”