Nathyn
Low Budget Ninja
So, to summarize: screw selling this movie for a profit, or even selling it. Get it into some legit festivals and shop YOURSELF around as much as you can, not YOUR MOVIE. Get a deal that will pay back the majority of your 420k by working on a follow-up feature with some studio. Who knows.
Hm. $400k film with big name talent that could make a mill or so overseas and maybe even do decent on American shelves. I'm no pro but this is crack pipe talk. I won't say it's bad advice but it's definitely bottom of the barrel. I may follow this kind of advice but my film cost $5000 with a decent but still "no name" cast. But when you have Tom Sizemore and the cast that's in this project money is there to be made. I've seen enough flicks with Sizemore thrown on the cover know he's got a base.
People are talking about this film on IMDB already so it's got heat even if it's small. Adam should indeed do just what he's doing. Find the best deal and sign on the dotted line, period. Now if you're spending $400k then it may not hurt to do festivals but come on. This film should break even at the least.
I bring this up for one primary reason: Visually, it looks low-quality. This automatically bars it from a variety of distributions and severely puts a dent in its value to acquisition executives. If you absolutely could only afford shooting on an HVX, you should have properly lit ALL of your scenes (including compositing with green screen for the blown out whites) and you should likely have used some heavy post-production visual effects to give the whole movie a sort of rustic, blown-out feel. That could have even played well with your subject matter.
As an action film fan I could see what he was going for the instant I saw the trailer. "Wages" could've had a look like this. Throwbacks seems to be in style. Black and White action noirs and such. No I don't see this on the big screen but I see a good cable run for this and maybe even Pay Per-View.
Now to make sure I wasn't smoking crack rock I watched this trailer again and it sales itself. My only issue is the color is a bit washed out but the look of the trailer is hardcore action. I don't know what nitrofour is talking about nor what his experience is but from what I've been hearing (and what I've seen on cable and in video stores) films like this seem to move all the time. How many films has Michael Madsen been in. I mean really.
Honestly I'm not taken with the trailer because it's simply not my kind of movie but I'm sure if Corrado added some martial arts kicks I'd be all over it. From a straight up marketing position I can only say I hope Sizemore's people have seen this and that word gets out. The trailer is solid aside from the color. That opening shot is real nice too. I don't know if it will make HBO but I can see Showtime and Stars, maybe Cinemax or even IFC (It is an indy film financed out of pocket that's a story in itself). What about the HD channels and all this. This is DTV Gold (Silver at least).
-Nate