IFC’s Bocco said Super fit what the company was looking for at the time. She admitted they knew the movie would do extremely well with their audience right after the screening. “We were looking for a highly marketable film that would be embraced by its core audience,” she explained. Not only the fan boys, but the critics who would be reviewing and blogging about it who would embrace James as a filmmaker.”
“Every year it gets harder and harder to make money off these films,” Bocco said. “We’re still figuring out ways to reach the audiences. It’s still incredibly challenging. Especially for American Indie films that don’t have Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon in it.”
But, Bocco admitted that luck had a huge factor in the films success. The film screened so well at Toronto in front of acquisition teams that it drummed up interest right away. She admitted that although she enjoyed the film and believes in it, it’s not typical how fast and how valuable Super got right away. “There are more unsold films that are sold. It’s still the ratio that is in place. There’s still not enough distributors (for Independent films) out there and that’s still a problem,” she explained.
“I think the movie was on people’s radars, but I think at the end of the day it sold because it played well,” Bailey asserted, honestly believing in her product. “At the end of the day, no matter what you do, you have to make a good movie.”
IFC is targeting a March or April release in order to drum up summer sales, hoping the movie will stay in theaters throughout the summer due to a cult following. They also plan to release day and date on VOD.
Bailey is realistic about the number of projects that are out there, knowing that many deserving films just like hers have yet to find an interested buyer. “It’s a great script, but there are tons of great scripts,” she said. “James is a great director, but there’s tons of great directors. It’s got awesome producers, but there are tons of awesome producers.”
Being brutally honest, she admitted it really all came down to timing and mostly luck.
“If I knew what the magic was on this project I would bottle it and sell it to every film maker,” she said.