 To Co-Produce or Not to Co-Produce? |
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Page 2 of 2 Treaty conditions can be tough to meetInternational co-productions are also tricky because they are governed by treaties. Most of them require that a minimum percentage of the cost of the film be spent in each country. In the case of the United Kingdom, for instance, that percentage has recently risen to 40 per cent from 20 per cent.Treaty conditions can be tough to meet. For example, Cass struck a co-production deal with the U.K. in 2002 to make Falling Angels, the Toronto International Film Festival hit based on Barbara Gowdy’s novel. In the end, he pulled out of the deal. At that time, he needed to spend 20 per cent of the budget of about $4.5 million in the U.K. (Today, it would be 40 per cent.) He planned to do post-production in the U.K., but during the preparations, he realized that it was going to cost him exactly twice as much in the U.K. as it would in Canada. “It just didn’t make any sense,” he says. At $6 million, co-production makes financial senseCass and Stratton say that in their experience, a feature film’s budget needs to be in the range of $6 million or more before an international co-production starts to make sense financially. Bruce Greenwood in The Republic of Love For example, Stratton made The Republic of Love, based on the novel by Pulitzer-Prize winner Carol Shields, with a partner from the U.K. The partner brought in more than 50 per cent of the final budget, which was more than $6 million. Because the film came out in 2003, before the treaty with the U.K. changed, they only had to spend 20 per cent of that budget in the U.K. They ended up spending 30 per cent. a filmmaker also needs to be able to bring 20% of the budget to the table Stratton points out that a filmmaker also needs to be able to bring 20 per cent of the budget to the table in order to make an international co-production fly. None of that 20 per cent can be from tax credits. “Ten per cent is easy,” Stratton says. “Twenty per cent is hard.” And they caution that the deal also needs to be about more than money. “You have to have a strong creative reason,” says Cass. As well, an international partner needs to be a real collaborator, someone who thinks about the film in the same way you do. “They’re like shotgun weddings,” says Cass. “You end up staring at each other over a lot of dinner tables.”  |
