Movie-making team building Warsaw-to-Hollywood bridge
"We see great potential on the Polish film market," said Pollock, an American who has been working in Hollywood movie production for the last 13 years.
Last April, he and Polish-born Schoenhals came to Warsaw to start Open Door Entertainment, a small independent film production company. Incorporated in Warsaw with an office in Los Angeles, the two are looking to build a feature-movie bridge between Hollywood and Poland, bringing the two markets closer.
"We want to become middlemen to Hollywood," Pollock said.
The first plank in this bridge is the Open Door-produced re-make of Poland's 1997 blockbuster, "Kiler."
When Pollock and Schoenhals first went to see the Polish movie in a Krakow movie theater last fall, they knew almost immediately that the movie was a real killer.
"It was the first time I would pay 150% of the price for a movie ticket," said Pollock. "I bought tickets from scalpers for the Rolling Stones or for sports events, but never for a movie."
From a Polish screen, the two took the movie back to Hollywood where they brokered the sale of the movie's rights to Disney's Hollywood Pictures. Acting on behalf of the Polish producer, Studio Filmowe Zebra, Open Door arranged the sale of the rights to "Kiler" for $600,000, the largest amount ever paid for a Polish-made movie.
Disney is now planning a $40 million budget for "Kiler's" remake, although a date has not been set for its release. But just before the movie's title is shown on the screen, American viewers will see the logo of the movie's U.S. producer - Open Door Entertainment, based in Warsaw, Poland.Open Door Entertainment's first plank in building a Warsaw-Hollywood movie-making bridge will be the remake of "Kiler." The blockbuster Polish movie, directed by Juliusz Machulski and produced by Studio Filmowe Zebra, has been seen by 2.2 million people since it opened last fall.
The story of a cab driver mistaken for a contract killer, "Kiler" has grossed zl. 17.02 million ($5 million) so far, according to the movie's distributor ITI Cinema, which was a co-producer along with Canal+ Polska. About half this revenue goes to the theaters and the remainder is distributed among the producer, distributor and co-producers.
"And it was still a relatively cheap movie," said Jacek Moczydlowski, production director at Zebra. The movie, which has just been released on video, cost zl. 1.8 million ($350,000).
In Poland, there has never before been a movie that grossed so much above its budget, said Dariusz Jablonski, president and owner of Poland's independent Apple Film Production house. "Counting on profits on a movie production, especially in a country like Poland, is like playing roulette, it's more or less the same level of risk," he added.
Because of this, serious investors, particularly those who have nothing to do with the movie industry, have been reluctant to invest in movie-making ventures, Jablonski said.
New scene
But "Kiler" could change all that. "Kiler showed that if you target right and shoot right, the rocket may fly really high," Jablonski said.
And shooting high is what Open Door Entertainment hopes to do on the Polish film market. At the beginning of this year the company brokered the rights for the movie's re-make to Disney's Hollywood Pictures for $600,000. Just before that, Zebra, which owns the rights to the movie, was offered $10,000 by 20th Century Fox.
"We thought it was way too little," said Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Film Makers Association and a producer and director with Zebra.
"We thought we could do much better," Pollock said.
"We said, look Juliusz (Machulski), the more we get, the bigger the movie will be," added the 32-year-old Schoenhals.
And seeing the movie produced in a big way is a key to the success of Open Door. Although the company brokered the rights' sale on behalf of Zebra, it did not make a commission on the deal.
Instead, it will be one of the producers for the American re-make, which will be a New York-based story featuring a cab driver involved in a case of mistaken identity on board a gambling ship on the Hudson River.
"It will be an American movie, on an American scale, with a big American movie star and a big director," said the 47-year-old Pollock.
According to initial talks, the $40 million-budget movie will be directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of "Men in Black," who will also produce the movie with Juliusz Machulski as the executive producer.
And while Disney will finance the movie, Open Door will get a producer's fee.
"I produced 12 films in the States and each time I tried to get more money as my fee, and then I established what's called a quote," said Pollock, who also runs his own production company in L.A. called Peak Productions. Over the past three years, the company produced such movies as "Meet the Deedles" (dir. Steve Boyum), "Set it Off" (dir. Gary Gray), and "Mrs. Winterbourne" (dir. Richard Benjamin). Pollock also wrote "Skywalking," a best-selling biography of George Lucas, the man behind "Star Wars," and worked as a writer for Daily Variety and the Los Angeles Times.
"My quote is whatever my last fee was, so I worked very hard to build up my fee to a certain level," he said.
U.S. production fees range from $350,000-$1 million, Pollock said.
"We're doing the upper part of this range" for 'Kiler,' he added, declining to give a specific figure.
Made in Poland
But Open Door isn't just looking to 'Kiler' and the American movie market to establish itself. It's hoping to find success with a film that will be shot in Poland in both Polish and English for release in both the Polish and American markets.
The movie, to be called "Non Smoking Section," is a black comedy based on a short story by the same title by a Polish off-Broadway playwright, Janusz Glowacki. The screenplay is about an American woman coming to Poland with her boyfriend to look for her Polish grandfather.
Open Door is hoping it will be both an artistic and commercial success,
"If the American audience can relate to her and put themselves into her place, then we think we have a successful movie," said Pollock.
Actual shooting is expected to start this August so the movie can be released in fall 1999 in Poland and the United States. For the production, which will be shot in Poland with a primarily Polish cast, Open Door joined forces with Apple Film, which is an established, independent producer among the 20 or so medium-sized production companies here.
"We wanted someone who really was as enthusiastic about the script as we were and could see the movie the way we saw it," Pollock said. "We had several good choices, but ultimately we made our choice based on who we felt comfortable with."
And Jablonski, who runs his company according to U.S. standards including special software that allows for scripts to be written in a U.S.-format, also said he felt at ease with the American partners.
"I think they have guts, vision and they reach for their dream, and that's what film production is all about," he said.
And when your partners look at the movie making process the same way you do, the production becomes a real pleasure, he added.
The $2 million-budget movie is currently looking for financing. But in Poland, independent producers have it harder than ones linked with a television station, the largest budget producers on the market, Jablonski said.
"Basically every time an independent producer starts a production he or she is looking for financing sources from the very beginning, not like U.S. producers that are affiliated with majors, or European ones affiliated with television stations," he said. "However, dependence on large capital determines the fact that a movie is treated as a product. It has nothing to do with doing art, or interesting movies."
But no producer finances his or her own movie, he added.
"It's a basic rule - a producer only gives development financing, for the idea, script, rewriting of the following versions of the script, casting etc.," he said, specifying that this portion of financing constitutes approximately 10-15% of the movie's total budget. To break even, a producer often gets a share of the movie's profits.
Budget takes
"Non Smoking Section's" budget is high by Polish standards. Because the market is under-developed, it's difficult to finance budgets higher than zl. 2 million ($590,000), unless you're Machulski, Jablonski said.
And even though "Kiler" has aroused some interest among new financing sources, the rules governing movie financing in Poland are still upside down, Jablonski said.
"In Poland, all institutions that finance film production have a very simple equation they use: If you give 50% of the money, you take 50% of the rights," he said. "And while it seems nice and logical, if TVP takes half the rights for the movie that I've made, and each and every other investor does the same, I'm left with empty hands."
This structure could lead to the death of the Polish film industry, Jablonski argued, because it is the producers, not the investors, who do the most to promote and sell a movie.
And rights for a movie are critical. While the usual producer's fee in Poland constitutes 5-20% of a film's budget, independent production companies really live on the rights to the movie.
If a movie is a hit, a German TV station may be willing to pay up to DM 100,000 for a single airing, Jablonski said. "But in Poland, there still exists a way of thinking that the less the producer gets the better," he added.
In addition, Polish producers have to fight domestic distributors who are likely to drop a homegrown movie when it is still making a profit, just because a B-class American movie is waiting in the pipeline.
"While for an American producer what he makes here is just a mere bonus compared to the American market, for a Polish producer whose movie has just been withdrawn, it's a question of life and death," Zebra's Bromski said.
That's why while producing "Kiler," Zebra worked hard to get ITI Cinema, the movie's domestic distributor on board as a co-producer. This gave it a vested interest in keeping the movie on screens.
Overall, producers such as Open Door, Apple and Zebra are all hoping "Kiler" will have marked a new chapter in the story of Polish movie making.
"It was a dream-come-true production for Zebra itself, but 'Kiler' also changed the way investors look at Polish movie productions, and that goes for the whole market," Zebra's Moczydlowski said. "Only today a managing director of a huge international bank paid me a visit at the end of which he pulled out his business card and told me to contact him if we have an idea for a movie. That never happened before."
Last April, he and Polish-born Schoenhals came to Warsaw to start Open Door Entertainment, a small independent film production company. Incorporated in Warsaw with an office in Los Angeles, the two are looking to build a feature-movie bridge between Hollywood and Poland, bringing the two markets closer.
"We want to become middlemen to Hollywood," Pollock said.
The first plank in this bridge is the Open Door-produced re-make of Poland's 1997 blockbuster, "Kiler."
When Pollock and Schoenhals first went to see the Polish movie in a Krakow movie theater last fall, they knew almost immediately that the movie was a real killer.
"It was the first time I would pay 150% of the price for a movie ticket," said Pollock. "I bought tickets from scalpers for the Rolling Stones or for sports events, but never for a movie."
From a Polish screen, the two took the movie back to Hollywood where they brokered the sale of the movie's rights to Disney's Hollywood Pictures. Acting on behalf of the Polish producer, Studio Filmowe Zebra, Open Door arranged the sale of the rights to "Kiler" for $600,000, the largest amount ever paid for a Polish-made movie.
Disney is now planning a $40 million budget for "Kiler's" remake, although a date has not been set for its release. But just before the movie's title is shown on the screen, American viewers will see the logo of the movie's U.S. producer - Open Door Entertainment, based in Warsaw, Poland.Open Door Entertainment's first plank in building a Warsaw-Hollywood movie-making bridge will be the remake of "Kiler." The blockbuster Polish movie, directed by Juliusz Machulski and produced by Studio Filmowe Zebra, has been seen by 2.2 million people since it opened last fall.
The story of a cab driver mistaken for a contract killer, "Kiler" has grossed zl. 17.02 million ($5 million) so far, according to the movie's distributor ITI Cinema, which was a co-producer along with Canal+ Polska. About half this revenue goes to the theaters and the remainder is distributed among the producer, distributor and co-producers.
"And it was still a relatively cheap movie," said Jacek Moczydlowski, production director at Zebra. The movie, which has just been released on video, cost zl. 1.8 million ($350,000).
In Poland, there has never before been a movie that grossed so much above its budget, said Dariusz Jablonski, president and owner of Poland's independent Apple Film Production house. "Counting on profits on a movie production, especially in a country like Poland, is like playing roulette, it's more or less the same level of risk," he added.
Because of this, serious investors, particularly those who have nothing to do with the movie industry, have been reluctant to invest in movie-making ventures, Jablonski said.
New scene
But "Kiler" could change all that. "Kiler showed that if you target right and shoot right, the rocket may fly really high," Jablonski said.
And shooting high is what Open Door Entertainment hopes to do on the Polish film market. At the beginning of this year the company brokered the rights for the movie's re-make to Disney's Hollywood Pictures for $600,000. Just before that, Zebra, which owns the rights to the movie, was offered $10,000 by 20th Century Fox.
"We thought it was way too little," said Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Film Makers Association and a producer and director with Zebra.
"We thought we could do much better," Pollock said.
"We said, look Juliusz (Machulski), the more we get, the bigger the movie will be," added the 32-year-old Schoenhals.
And seeing the movie produced in a big way is a key to the success of Open Door. Although the company brokered the rights' sale on behalf of Zebra, it did not make a commission on the deal.
Instead, it will be one of the producers for the American re-make, which will be a New York-based story featuring a cab driver involved in a case of mistaken identity on board a gambling ship on the Hudson River.
"It will be an American movie, on an American scale, with a big American movie star and a big director," said the 47-year-old Pollock.
According to initial talks, the $40 million-budget movie will be directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of "Men in Black," who will also produce the movie with Juliusz Machulski as the executive producer.
And while Disney will finance the movie, Open Door will get a producer's fee.
"I produced 12 films in the States and each time I tried to get more money as my fee, and then I established what's called a quote," said Pollock, who also runs his own production company in L.A. called Peak Productions. Over the past three years, the company produced such movies as "Meet the Deedles" (dir. Steve Boyum), "Set it Off" (dir. Gary Gray), and "Mrs. Winterbourne" (dir. Richard Benjamin). Pollock also wrote "Skywalking," a best-selling biography of George Lucas, the man behind "Star Wars," and worked as a writer for Daily Variety and the Los Angeles Times.
"My quote is whatever my last fee was, so I worked very hard to build up my fee to a certain level," he said.
U.S. production fees range from $350,000-$1 million, Pollock said.
"We're doing the upper part of this range" for 'Kiler,' he added, declining to give a specific figure.
Made in Poland
But Open Door isn't just looking to 'Kiler' and the American movie market to establish itself. It's hoping to find success with a film that will be shot in Poland in both Polish and English for release in both the Polish and American markets.
The movie, to be called "Non Smoking Section," is a black comedy based on a short story by the same title by a Polish off-Broadway playwright, Janusz Glowacki. The screenplay is about an American woman coming to Poland with her boyfriend to look for her Polish grandfather.
Open Door is hoping it will be both an artistic and commercial success,
"If the American audience can relate to her and put themselves into her place, then we think we have a successful movie," said Pollock.
Actual shooting is expected to start this August so the movie can be released in fall 1999 in Poland and the United States. For the production, which will be shot in Poland with a primarily Polish cast, Open Door joined forces with Apple Film, which is an established, independent producer among the 20 or so medium-sized production companies here.
"We wanted someone who really was as enthusiastic about the script as we were and could see the movie the way we saw it," Pollock said. "We had several good choices, but ultimately we made our choice based on who we felt comfortable with."
And Jablonski, who runs his company according to U.S. standards including special software that allows for scripts to be written in a U.S.-format, also said he felt at ease with the American partners.
"I think they have guts, vision and they reach for their dream, and that's what film production is all about," he said.
And when your partners look at the movie making process the same way you do, the production becomes a real pleasure, he added.
The $2 million-budget movie is currently looking for financing. But in Poland, independent producers have it harder than ones linked with a television station, the largest budget producers on the market, Jablonski said.
"Basically every time an independent producer starts a production he or she is looking for financing sources from the very beginning, not like U.S. producers that are affiliated with majors, or European ones affiliated with television stations," he said. "However, dependence on large capital determines the fact that a movie is treated as a product. It has nothing to do with doing art, or interesting movies."
But no producer finances his or her own movie, he added.
"It's a basic rule - a producer only gives development financing, for the idea, script, rewriting of the following versions of the script, casting etc.," he said, specifying that this portion of financing constitutes approximately 10-15% of the movie's total budget. To break even, a producer often gets a share of the movie's profits.
Budget takes
"Non Smoking Section's" budget is high by Polish standards. Because the market is under-developed, it's difficult to finance budgets higher than zl. 2 million ($590,000), unless you're Machulski, Jablonski said.
And even though "Kiler" has aroused some interest among new financing sources, the rules governing movie financing in Poland are still upside down, Jablonski said.
"In Poland, all institutions that finance film production have a very simple equation they use: If you give 50% of the money, you take 50% of the rights," he said. "And while it seems nice and logical, if TVP takes half the rights for the movie that I've made, and each and every other investor does the same, I'm left with empty hands."
This structure could lead to the death of the Polish film industry, Jablonski argued, because it is the producers, not the investors, who do the most to promote and sell a movie.
And rights for a movie are critical. While the usual producer's fee in Poland constitutes 5-20% of a film's budget, independent production companies really live on the rights to the movie.
If a movie is a hit, a German TV station may be willing to pay up to DM 100,000 for a single airing, Jablonski said. "But in Poland, there still exists a way of thinking that the less the producer gets the better," he added.
In addition, Polish producers have to fight domestic distributors who are likely to drop a homegrown movie when it is still making a profit, just because a B-class American movie is waiting in the pipeline.
"While for an American producer what he makes here is just a mere bonus compared to the American market, for a Polish producer whose movie has just been withdrawn, it's a question of life and death," Zebra's Bromski said.
That's why while producing "Kiler," Zebra worked hard to get ITI Cinema, the movie's domestic distributor on board as a co-producer. This gave it a vested interest in keeping the movie on screens.
Overall, producers such as Open Door, Apple and Zebra are all hoping "Kiler" will have marked a new chapter in the story of Polish movie making.
"It was a dream-come-true production for Zebra itself, but 'Kiler' also changed the way investors look at Polish movie productions, and that goes for the whole market," Zebra's Moczydlowski said. "Only today a managing director of a huge international bank paid me a visit at the end of which he pulled out his business card and told me to contact him if we have an idea for a movie. That never happened before."
