A THOUGHT...

I can't help myself when I read articles like this...

This doesn’t fit into our usual streams, and it’ll be a good couple of months before I get to a THE SITUATION piece that might cover distribution economics properly. But an article dropped in IF Magazine that I can’t just let sit. So here are some thoughts from me - an indie producer.

IF Magazine published a piece this week featuring Mike Baard, the managing director of Universal Pictures International Australasia, speaking at AACTA Festival about the economics of distribution. The article is worth reading on its own (linked above), but here’s the key point I want to talk about.

Baard laid out the financial reality of what it costs Universal to release a film.

By way of example, he said if you received a $500,000 minimum guarantee from an ANZ distributor for your $10 million film, they would likely be expecting that film to make around $5 million at the box office. To help achieve that result, they would then be looking at a further $1.5-2.5 million in marketing spend. Alongside that $3 million in exposure – “a big number to hand creative control over to somebody” – is an often very expensive infrastructure of expertise in publicity, social media and advertising.

It’s a useful breakdown. I don’t disagree with the numbers (read THE SITUATION on Waterfalls) AND I don't disagree with the disruption that has happened in the earned media space. But I think there's important context that's brushed over in this conversation, and as a independent film producer, I want to unpack it.

The risk isn’t the same

When Universal Australia releases a Hollywood film, that film arrives with global marketing already in motion, international star power, and built-in audience recognition. Universal Australia is the local arm executing a global strategy. The risk is there, but it’s cushioned by an enormous machine working in every territory simultaneously. Even when Universal releases a film from Sweden (THE LAST JOURNEY - A 2025 documentary*) it comes with a lot of the marketing assets already created. They aren’t starting from square one.

When an Australian independent distributor picks up a local film, none of that infrastructure exists. There’s no global rollout. There’s no pre-built awareness. The distributor is starting from scratch with Australian audiences who, as we know from the data, choose Australian films about 2% of the time.

That’s the risk that deserves acknowledgment. The distributors who consistently show up for Australian independents are doing something genuinely difficult, and they’re doing it without the safety net of a studio pipeline behind them.

Universal Australia is not Universal worldwide

I was an associate producer on DIRT MUSIC, which Universal distributed in ANZ during covid. When you secure an ANZ deal with Universal, you are getting Universal for Australia and New Zealand only. The international sales for DIRT MUSIC were handled by Cornerstone Films, the international sales agent, who was selling the film territory by territory around the world. The Universal name on your film in Australia does not garuntee Universal’s doors open in the US, the UK, or anywhere else.

This matters because Baard’s economic framework is presented in a way that could leave inexperienced filmmakers thinking a major distributor’s involvement means more than it does. For an Australian independent filmmker, your ANZ distribution is one piece of a much larger, much harder puzzle.

I went back and looked at Universal’s Australian independent releases over the past six years:

2026: Nothing yet (Elvis Presley in Concert is a studio-adjacent release)

2025: No Australian independents

2024: Furiosa (studio film)

2023: No Australian independents

2022: Elvis (studio film)

2021: Mortal Kombat (studio film)

2020: Dirt Music, Babyteeth, Slim & I, The Invisible Man

Universal hasn’t released an Australian independent film since 2020. I don’t blame them. They’re part of a conglomerate with shareholders, and they will always make more money releasing international studio films than local independents. That’s the business they’re in.

But when someone who runs a company that has effectively stepped away from Australian independent distribution is speaking at AACTA Festival about what filmmakers should do to connect with distributors, filmmakers deserve to know that context.

Baard suggests that films earning under $100k at the box office would have been better off releasing on streaming. That sounds logical from a distributor’s perspective. But it ignores why those films are in cinemas in the first place. Most Australian films need the 40% Producer Offset to close their budgets, and that offset requires a qualifying theatrical release. On a film with $4 million in Australian spend, dropping from the 40% to the 30% offset means losing $400,000 in financing**. For many of these productions, that’s the difference between the film existing and not existing. Telling filmmakers to skip cinemas isn’t a distribution note. It’s a financing one.

There’s also a cultural question worth raising. If every Australian film that earned under $100k was pulled from cinemas and redirected to streaming, what are we left with? Cinema screens dominated almost entirely by international product, with Australian stories pushed to platforms where they compete for attention against catalogues of thousands. Cinemas are one of the few public spaces where Australian stories can be visible alongside the biggest films in the world. Even a modest theatrical run puts a film in front of audiences who weren’t looking for it. Streaming doesn’t do that. Surrendering that space might make commercial sense for an individual title, but across the industry, it shrinks the cultural footprint of Australian cinema in the one place where visibility matters most.

What I want you to take from this

Baard’s advice on high concept pitching, collaborative development, and understanding the economics of release is sound. I’m not dismissing it. But when you hear distribution advice, look at who’s giving it and what they’re actually distributing.

The distributors who are putting money and effort behind Australian independent films right now are not Universal. They’re the companies making bets on local stories with local audiences, without the backing of a global studio machine. Those are the partners worth understanding, and those are the relationships worth building. And maybe (I hope) Universal will get back in the game of distributing local films. Reading between the lines here Mike is saying Australian films aren’t commercial enough to get them to bite. That’s a whole other THE SITUATION to talk about.

I’ll dig into the economics of Australian independent distribution properly in a future THE SITUATION piece. For now, I wanted to make sure this landed while the conversation was still fresh.

Till I see you at the cinema next, Kate

*Universal released a Swedish documentary but no Australian films????

** anyone who’s done film financing knows this figure is more like $350,000 but we are working in basic’s here.