Tag Archives: show business

Social Media for film marketing in 2026

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Emma Jamieson, on her Reeling and Dealing Substack, just published the insightful: You’re not running a film release campaign — You’re building an ecosystem.

You’re not running a film release campaign. You’re building an ecosystem. by Emma Jamieson

Today’s successful film marketing campaigns are fully-rounded ecosystems.

Read on Substack

She reminds us it’s no longer 2015 and a funnel strategy no longer works:

What she recommends for 2026 is “a looped ecosystem continuously feeding audiences”:

She says what’s needed to accomplish this is:

  • Audience Discovery
  • Cultural Positioning
  • A Conversation Hub
  • A Conversion Engine

“In 2026, we build strategic content ecosystems and native communities, and the platforms decide who to show it to and if it’s worth showing. For filmmakers, studios, streamers and distributors, this changes how campaigns are designed from the start.”

She’s very generous with Resources and offers a cheat sheet on How to plan a social media content strategy for your film.

My take: as I said, very insightful! lol, my mental image of the long tail is now a dog chasing its tail — in an echo chamber….

How to watch the 2026 Oscar nominees for Best Picture

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Where can you watch the 2026 Oscar nominees for Best Picture?

Rotten Tomatoes provides a handy list. And here are some sources for the Best Pictures in Canada:

Best Picture Nominee Where to Watch Link to Site Official Trailer
Bugonia Rent/Buy on Apple TV or Prime Rent on Apple TV Official Trailer
F1 Stream on Apple TV Watch on Apple TV Official Trailer
Frankenstein Stream on Netflix Watch on Netflix Official Trailer
Hamnet Rent/Buy on Apple TV or Prime Rent on Prime Video Official Trailer
Marty Supreme Rent/Buy on Apple TV or Prime Rent on Prime Video Official Trailer
One Battle After Another Stream on Crave Watch on Crave Official Trailer
The Secret Agent In Theatres / Rent/Buy on Apple TV Rent on Apple TV Official Trailer
Sentimental Value Stream on MUBI Watch on MUBI Official Trailer
Sinners Stream on Crave Watch on Crave Official Trailer
Train Dreams Stream on Netflix Watch on Netflix Official Trailer

My take: whatever you think of the Oscars, you have to agree they are the pinnacle of motion picture marketing.

The state of Canadian feature films in 2025

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Telefilm Canada has released its annual report on moviegoing and distribution in Canada.

The trend continues to be dire.

Canadian films accounted for only $14M of $837M box office revenue, or just 1.7%.

That 1.7% doesn’t do justice to French-language films though, which garnered 13%, leaving Canadian English-language films at just 0.4%. Less than half of one percent!

(Telefilm does attempt to put a better spin on this by breaking out “independent films” from “major Hollywood productions”, but to no avail.)

Only three Canadian films made more than $1M revenue at the box office.

“The summer comedy Menteuse stood out, achieving box office revenue of over $2.6 million. The children’s films Ma belle-mère est une sorcière and Night of the Zoopocalypse round out this trio, both having generated box office revenue of over $1.1 million in Canada.”

The top ten films at the box office were all Hollywood productions.

“Of all the films screened in Canadian theatres, the feature film A Minecraft Movie, based on the popular video game, stood out with box office revenue of almost $45 million in 2025. This was followed by Jurassic World: Rebirth and Superman, which both surpassed $30 million. Apart from F1: The Movie, all the top ten titles were sequels or adaptations based on existing intellectual property.”

The figures are from the Movie Theatre Association of Canada.

Download the report here.

My take: I don’t begrudge Telefilm its $100M+ budget, but I submit that something is wrong with this picture. Either project selection is not taking the cinema-going audience in mind, or there’s not enough marketing happening, or both. If we truly want a national cinema and not just a feature film service industry for foreign producers, I can think of a few things that have to happen: a screen quota, lower budgets, a tax credit for film investors, a star system, a Canadian film media; all working together to create a meritocracy that makes movies Canadians want to watch in Canadian theatres, eh!

Can the Ethos Equity Model Finance Indie Films?

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Jason Hellerman of No Film School interviews Ariel Heller and Sam Baron about financing in How ‘Circles’ Is Using Radical Transparency and an Equity Model to Build an Indie Feature.

Jason quotes Ariel:

“In the traditional finance model, indies rely on underpaid labor, opaque accounting, and the promise of exposure that rarely materializes into real participation. Whereas in this equity model, everyone from director to PA works for the same rate (a competitive indie wage pegged to the SAG minimums) in exchange for equity. Most crews never see a budget, never understand a waterfall, and never receive a dollar after wrap. By opening the books, educating collaborators on the model itself and giving access to budgets and cap tables, we remove the suspicion that has defined so much of the industry. Transparency builds confidence, and confidence builds better work.”

Their inspiration comes from Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar. See their Ethos Equity Financing Model.

See Wrapbook to understand traditional Equity Financing.

My take: I like the thought behind this. Using “set time” to determine equity gets everyone in the game, however, it also devalues intangibles like a screenwriter’s years of rewrites, a cinematographer’s film school debt and an actor’s clout. To make this work, I think you’d have to assign in-kind value to these and other intangibles and add this to the Investor side. Then 60/40 to 120%, followed by 50/50 could make sense. Basically, this model has craftspeople in front of and behind the camera share 40% of all income from the first dollar, distributed by time worked, hopefully rising to 50% at some point.

 

Write a commercial spec script, please!

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Franklin Leonard of The Black List makes The Moral Case for “Selling Out”.

Read the full post because it’s guaranteed to get your fired up for 2026. Leonard starts with:

“If you’re an aspiring professional screenwriter and you want this to be your job, write a commercial spec script.”

By commercial, he means something real audiences will pay to watch.

He then goes on to ask nine questions you must answer before you spend your limited time and energy on a script:

  • Can you make a busy person want to read it in a single sentence?
  • Is it in a genre lane with an engine?
  • Does your protagonist want something visible and external?
  • Do you have a “big bad?”
  • Do you have a ticking clock?
  • Do the stakes escalate?
  • Do you have set pieces?
  • Do you land the plane?
  • Is it yours?

He concludes with this exhortation:

“Earnest as it may be, I still believe that a popular movie, done right, is a small act of care at a global scale. Look around. The world out there is rough right now for almost everyone. If you can help people set down whatever they’re carrying for two hours and, as Miyazaki puts it, “find unexpected admiration, honesty, or affirmation in themselves, and… return to their daily lives with a bit more energy,” there’s absolutely nothing soulless or frivolous about that.”

My take: I agree log lines are very important. Roger Corman would start with the poster. In both cases, they represent the concept of your story: the sum of character, plot, setting, conflict, and theme. This is the DNA of the work — choose carefully.

The new age of cinema begins

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Dana Harris-Bridson reports in IndieWire on Creator Camp and the Three-Picture Theatrical Deal: Attend Is Betting the Internet Can Fill Movie Screens.

She writes, “The Austin-based creator collective distribution arm, Camp Studios, signed a three-picture theatrical deal with Attend Theatrical Marketplace, the Fithian Group company that connects filmmakers directly with movie theaters, streamlining the process of booking and releasing films.”

“The real bet is if creators already know their audience, why can’t that audience show up to a cinema?”

The first test is indie rom-com Two Sleepy People.

My take: I’ve been waiting for this moment for twenty years, ever since video first started appearing on the Internet.

This is much more than a story about a distributor picking up a movie for distribution; it’s tentative proof of a new and emerging theatrical distribution model that will replace the crumbling one.

The big difference to me is the importance of Audience. In the Legacy Model, it was simply assumed that the audience would show up if enough money was spent on marketing. In the New Model, online creators have ongoing relationships with their audiences before making their movies and then rely on them to manifest local screenings on demand through critical mass.

In simple terms:

OLD = Legacy Creator -> Movie -> Distributor -> Cinemas -> Audience.

NEW = Online Creator -> Audience -> Movie -> Distributor -> Audience -> Cinemas.

Best wishes to Attend and Creator Camp!

Rio and friends step up to save Vancouver’s Park Theatre

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Part of Vancouver’s film history has been saved by Corinne Lea of the Rio Theatre and a group of private investors, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Corinne Lea (@corinne_riotheatre)

From her statement:

“The Rio Theatre is very excited by the opportunity to revive Vancouver’s historic, art-deco Park Theatre in the beloved Cambie Village neighbourhood. We are grateful for the support of this impressive group of film industry professionals, and could not do this without them! After almost two decades of rocking the Rio, we look forward to this expansion, and bringing the same fun, energy and passion to a new location.”

Among the investors are:

  1. Chris Ferguson
  2. Osgood Perkins
  3. Mike Flanagan
  4. Sean Baker
  5. Samantha Quan
  6. Zach Lipovsky
  7. Finn Wolfhard
  8. Graham Fortin
  9. Eugenio Battaglia
  10. Andy Levine
  11. Jill Orsten
  12. Christina Bulbrook

My take: I applaud this effort because local control of movie screens is critical for a truly independent national cinema.

Netflix confirms 14 day theatrical run for Knives Out 3

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Jack Dunn in Variety reveals that ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’ Sets Two-Week Theatrical Release Before Netflix Rollout.

The third instalment in the ensemble mystery franchise featuring Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc will screen in selected theatres globally for 14 days starting November 26 before streaming on Netflix on December 12, 2025.

In 2022, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” played in 600 cinemas for one week one month before streaming.

My take: kudos to Rian Johnson for putting this in his Netflix contract. Could this become their new norm, after Netflix’s success with its two-day KPop Demon Hunter theatrical release?

Make features, not shorts, says distribution consultant

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Film Courage asks Zac Reeder, an Emmy-nominated producer’s rep and distribution/financing consultant, “What is it that 99% of filmmakers don’t understand about distribution?”

He says people spend too much and don’t cast recognizable actors.

And, “A lot of people would be shocked if they saw the real numbers.”

But he also says:

“I encourage people not to just make short films, but to make features because if you can make a short, I think you can make a feature, because you’re almost there. It’s a little bit more money, but a feature is much better; it has some marketability.”

Zac’s company, Lucky 27, provides Financing & Distribution Strategy, Producer’s Representation, Negotiation and Deal-Making and Marketing and Promotion services.

My take: having made over 60 short films, I totally agree. There is no money to be made making shorts. Features, technically, have a market. Of course, what’s distinctly missing here is what the market is looking for, how to attract those known actors and how to raise the money. Guess that’s where the consulting services come in.

 

Canadian movies, by annual box office

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In honour of our upcoming Canada Day, I thought it would be patriotic to take a look at the biggest all-time world box office numbers for Canadian movies produced in the last ten years.

See the excellent The Numbers website and their Top Canadian Movies of Each Year listings. The Top 10 by box office from 2016 to date:

Year Movie Budget Box Office
2020 Sonic The Hedgehog $90,000,000.00 $302,452,077.00
2023 PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie $30,000,000.00 $201,739,292.00
2019 The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part $99,000,000.00 $192,306,508.00
2024 Paddington in Peru $75,336,729.00 $192,148,490.00
2023 Insidious: The Red Door $16,000,000.00 $186,258,928.00
2021 PAW Patrol: The Movie $26,000,000.00 $151,403,419.00
2019 Midway $100,000,000.00 $126,787,360.00
2021 The Addams Family 2 Unknown $119,383,236.00
2019 Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark $28,000,000.00 $104,793,708.00
2016 Ballerina $30,000,000.00 $96,451,584.00

The Top Ten with Biggest Return on Budget:

Year Movie Budget Box Office Return %
2023 Skinamarink $15,000.00 $2,131,183.00 14208
2023 Insidious: The Red Door (US?) $16,000,000.00 $186,258,928.00 1164
2016 The Witch $3,500,000.00 $40,364,725.00 1153
2017 My Little Pony: The Movie $6,500,000.00 $61,294,644.00 943
2016 Embrace (Australia?) $225,000.00 $1,611,592.00 716
2023 PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie $30,000,000.00 $201,739,292.00 672
2021 PAW Patrol: The Movie $26,000,000.00 $151,403,419.00 582
2016 Race $5,000,000.00 $23,745,772.00 475
2019 The Lighthouse $4,000,000.00 $18,237,527.00 456

Confused by these titles? Paddington in Peru? Movies are international productions now and get certain work done in tax credit-friendly jurisdictions for the money – and the excellent work skilled artists and technicians provide, of course.

CAVCO certifies Canadian movies. The CRA then refunds money to the Canadian producers of these movies, to the tune of millions of dollars. (Wouldn’t it be nice to know which movies Canadian taxpayers are helping fund and for how much? Other than checking the credits, I don’t know of a comprehensive list. But here’s a cost report from BC.)

Is Canadian investment in Canadian movies worth it? Check Cinema of Canada to see how small the Canadian production and box office numbers actually are. And direct employment in Canadian movies is less than 8,500 people. That’s a government subsidy of something like $25,000 per job. (Someone please tell me my math is wrong.)

My take: The Hollywood Reporter recently published a list of The 51 Best Canadian Movies of All Time – now where have I heard that particular number recently? Curiously, I don’t think any of these movies appear on their list.