Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski kicked off the company’s CinemaCon presentation on Wednesday with a rousing speech in which he declared, “The specialty sector are the honey bees of the movie business”.
Kujawski said Focus and other major specialty distributors recovered faster than the overall marketplace. “We recovered faster, better… And although this may come as a surprise, we can understand it because specialty films are the ones that attract the most avid moviegoers. Period.”
He went on to say, “These are diverse audience members. They are fans of every genre. They are all ages, from all races and backgrounds and live in cities around the world. However, they are united by a mutual craving for elevated and unique stories that step outside the mainstream.
“And beyond this, the creative boundary pushing that we do to satisfy this audience seeds future generations of blockbusters. Christopher Nolan, Rian Johnson, Ryan Coogler, Taika Waititi, Patty Jenkins, Chloe Zhao and countless others all got their start making films for the specialty audience.
“In this sense, the specialty sector are the honeybees of the entire movie business, quietly pollinating by developing frequent audiences, new voices, and bold aesthetics that build a more sustainable model for the industry and create a more vibrant cinematic landscape along the way.”
Kujawski then made way for head of distribution Lisa Bunnell who teed up the trailer for Asteroid City, Wes Anderson’s latest feature centres on a Junior Stargazer convention in the 1950s. It will premiere in Cannes ahead of the US launch on June 16.
The ensemble cast includes Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Ed Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, and Hope Davis.
Stressing the importance of making a range of films to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, Bunnell teed up a clip from Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers (November 10).
Focus paid $30m for worldwide rights at TIFF last year to the comedy drama, which reunites Payne with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti and takes place in 1970 as an unpopular New England prep schoolteacher is forced to spend the Christmas holidays with a stranded, unruly student and the school’s head cook whose son has just died in the Vietnam War. The cast also includes Da’Vine Joy Randolph, a newcomer to the industry, and Dominic Sessa. The cast includes Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp and Matt Damon.
Rounding out the session, which was sandwiched between the Universal presentation, Bunnell brough a teaser from Nia Vardalos’ My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (September 8), in which the family visits their homeland.
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