Roeg Sutherland lacked the talent to become an actor like his world-famous father. Instead, he now coordinates the financing of the majority of independently produced Hollywood films.
Natalie Portman delighted a global audience in “Black Swan”. Without Roeg Sutherland the film would never have been made.
Fox Searchlight / Handout / EPA
They make you laugh, cry or be afraid. Films can be anything except boring.
It is often forgotten: big cinema is also big business. And this works according to exactly the same business rules as all other businesses.
The film industry worldwide generated almost $34 billion in sales last year. And unlike in Europe, where there are a variety of funding methods for filmmakers, there is hardly any support from the state or public broadcasters for Hollywood films.
There is a business plan behind every film
An estimated four fifths of this turnover comes from large film studios such as Universal, Disney or Warner Brothers. But while many of these studios have struggled with financial difficulties in recent years, so-called independent films have been able to expand their market shares. This somewhat vague term refers to productions whose budgets were created independently of the major studios. These can be small arthouse films, but also blockbusters like the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which was produced by the then independent studio New Line Cinema.
Small production companies rely on investors for such film projects – people who would rather invest their savings in a film instead of stocks or a fund. You just have to find the right project.
Roeg Sutherland can help with this. He is the son of Donald and the younger half-brother of Kiefer Sutherland, both world-famous actors. He was born with a passion for cinema, but his father denied him any acting talent.
So Roeg Sutherland ended up on the much less glamorous side of the film industry: financing Hollywood films. Today he heads the financing department of the Los Angeles-based Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
«It’s a sad way to look at a film. But basically for me there is a business plan behind every film. “I have to be able to justify it financially,” says Sutherland. He came for the Zurich Summit, an industry event for the film industry. It is an event as part of the Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) where producers, financiers and filmmakers come together.
Roeg Sutherland, Co-Head of CAA Media Finance.
PD
Sutherland received the ZFF’s “Game Changer Award” this year. 60 to 70 percent of all independently financed films are made by his team. He is basically the hinge between people who want to make a film and those who want to invest in one.
Sutherland puts it this way: “I do a package of script, director and actors. Then I’m looking for people who want to finance it.” Only then can a film even be made. One of Sutherland’s greatest successes is the film “Black Swan” with Natalie Portman in the role of the increasingly paranoid ballet dancer from 2010. It cost 13 million dollars and grossed around 330 million dollars. There was also an Oscar and several nominations.
A famous movie star is no guarantee
A film should have a clear budget. There are no fixed key figures, but there are rules of thumb: the costs for the cast should not make up more than 35 percent of the total budget. There are always budgets that deviate from this distribution – but this should be well justified, for example because particularly celebrated actors or directors are involved.
But there is no such thing as a guarantee of success for a film. “What makes the most sense at first glance makes the least sense in the end,” says Sutherland. For example, it was extremely difficult to finance “Black Swan”. “People read the script as a drama, but actually it was a thriller.” Even with “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” last year’s Oscar winner, there was nothing on paper that indicated that the film would be a box office hit.
When financing a film, it is extremely helpful to have one or two well-known film stars on board, explains Sutherland. But you should never be too sure of yourself. “In the 2008 film ‘Surfer, Dude’, Matthew McConaughey runs around shirtless almost the whole time. A surefire concept, one would think.” Sutherland got an investor to put $3 million into the film. In the end, the investor lost all his money and the film flopped. “Of all 400 films that I have supervised so far, this was my biggest failure.”
Gigi Oeri also invests in films
The example shows that as a film investor you take a big risk, even with supposedly safe projects. Nevertheless, finding investors has not been a problem recently, says Sutherland: “There is more money in the market than ever before. Everyone who invests money wants to somehow diversify their portfolio.”
The investors represented a wide spectrum, said Sutherland: from wealthy individuals who acted as patrons, to family offices, pension funds and private equity funds. Swiss business celebrities have also tried their hand at the film industry. The Basel Roche heiress Gigi Oeri (“The Perfume”, “Cloud Atlas”), for example, or the Breitling boss Georges Kern (“Mon chien stupide”).
Compared to investments in real estate or stocks, investments in films seem significantly riskier – but that’s wrong, says Sutherland. Probably not without his own interests, he says: “There is also risk in the stock market. There’s no such thing as a safe facility these days.”
But one thing is also clear: the film industry has had to struggle with major challenges in recent years. First, the corona pandemic caused empty cinemas and high additional costs. According to Sutherland, producers had to adjust their budgets upwards by at least 10 percent just to comply with health protection regulations. During this time, it was the streaming providers that saved the filmmakers’ business.
High interest rates force producers to save
Last year, Hollywood was temporarily shut down by strikes by screenwriters and actors. This not only made it difficult to produce new films, but also prevented actors from going on press tours for their upcoming projects. We are only slowly seeing a recovery effect, says Sutherland.
However, this is made more difficult by another factor: interest rates, which remain high. Although the US Federal Reserve initiated a turnaround in interest rates in September, the cost of fresh money is still high. It happens, says Sutherland, that he has to ask producers to cut their budgets by up to 25 percent. In such a case, everyone has to step back: actors, employees on the set and those involved in the production.
Despite all the difficulties, Roeg Sutherland remains optimistic. «In the 25 years I’ve been in the film business, there has always been some form of disruption. And it always continued somehow.” The next big change is already around the corner, and it will come from artificial intelligence. It can represent a promise for the industry, but also a danger – depending on how it is used.
So one thing is certain: if you put your money into the film, you can experience something.
The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) is part of the NZZ group.
