Let's Talk About... Your Indie Film's (Realistic) Distribution Path, Complete with a Handy Infographic
Determining what kind of indie film you have and being honest about your film's prospects is going to help set you and your team up for success in this month's free newsletter.
Marketing & PR for Indie Films is a reader supported publication: if you’d like to upgrade your subscription for $5/mo or $50 a year, or to learn more about marketing and PR for your #IndieFilm and work with me, click here.
In this month’s free newsletter, I’m putting on my producer hat to share how that perspective shapes the marketing and PR strategies I craft for both my own films and my clients’ projects.
After all, it’s much easier to get a plan in place if you’re 1) knowledgeable about the current landscape/marketplace and 2) honest with yourself about your film’s potential trajectory. When you know better, you do better.
We all want our children (aka our indie films) to grow up and be good enough to get into the Ivy Leagues (aka - Sundance, an outright acquisition by a platform, etc), because let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be wanted like that?
But the reality is that that club isn’t open to everyone—it never was and it never will be. And most of the films that are on that path were on it before a single frame was shot.
This doesn’t mean that your film can’t go on to great success or acclaim, quite the opposite: it’s just going to have a different path and it’s up to YOU to find that path.
The good news is, most films have a path (although dramas are still struggling), you just have to reverse engineer your thinking as you put your film together to serve the audience you’re going after.
I’m going to break down what those most likely (read: not conclusive) paths are so you can plan and strategize accordingly and make the most of your film’s launch because the moment you put your film on IMDB, the clock is ticking.
But before we get into it:
What I’m reading this week:
Gen Z Doesn’t Want to Start a Bar Tab: Their dining / social habits are reflective of their overall spending patterns
It’s the Death of the Screenplay Industrial Complex, and Not a Moment Too Soon: Gone are these expensive (and mostly unbeneficial platforms. What’s next?
50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee 2025: Movie Maker Magazine’s annual round up of festivals worth the entry fee was just published
Sequoia Capitol Invests $100MM on Mubi: This is the most bullish injection of capitol into indie film I’ve seen in a while. Mubi bought Demi Moore’ The Substance for $12MM last year, and it earned $84MM at the box office.
The Hollywood Dead Pool over at : A round up of what’s thriving, dying, on life-support or has a DNR order from
.OnlyFans Billboards are Taking Over from These creators are using ads IRL to circumvent digital restrictions. Could this be a renaissance for physical media?
- over atToo Much TV
LA Sound Stages: The New Dead Mall? From
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And Now Let's Talk About... Your Indie Film's (Realistic) Distribution Path, Complete with a Handy Infographic
When we put our film DARUMA together, we were certain the film was going to get snapped up in an outright acquisition. This was late 2019/2020 pre-pandemic and streamers were still gobbling up content for their catalogues and we thought we were a shoe-in. We had no clue the devastation 2020 would wreak on the film industry nor how much the landscape would change by the time we finally got our film on the festival circuit in late 2023.
One of the most significant aspects to change was the shift in the volume of content that streamers/platforms would purchase. They just flat-out stopped buying indie films. If you look at films that even played in some of the top film festivals, many of those films still don’t have distribution deals in place.
And there are even more seismic changes happening in the film industry right now, especially within the doc space, so I want you to know something: it’s not just you.
Everyone is feeling the pain of the current era we’re in but that also means there’s more opportunities than ever to stand up and stand out.
If you’e reading this, you’re more than likely in the bracket of either first-time indie filmmaker or fall within a budget range of $50,000 - $750,000.
While that’s quite a bit of difference in terms of budget for indie films, it means nothing to acquisitions teams and if you didn’t go into your production with several things already in place, the possibility of getting an outright acquisition for your film or a whopping SVOD deal is highly unlikely.
I made this infographic so you can look at where you are in your filmmaking process and have an honest conversation with yourself and your team about what your next steps should be so you can plan accordingly (or work with me to do so!).
Listen, the reason no one is taking big swings on films right now is because people never get fired in this business for saying no: they get fired for saying YES.
For me personally, having this information and clarity is a relief really, because it means that you’re in charge of plotting the course for your film and you can reverse-engineer the outcome you’d like to have. That way, the next time you make a film (and there WILL BE a next time) your pedigree can reflect not only what an amazing filmmaker you are, but what an incredibly savvy, intuitive film business person you are as well.
And THAT’S the kind of filmmaking that will get you noticed and advance your career.
If you’d like to work with me on a strategic distribution, marketing and PR plan for your #IndieFilm click here.
And now, here’s the infographic, which you are free to share.
Click here to download the PDF:
Click on the graphic to enlarge:
You may also like:
Want to Work With Me?
Marketing & PR for Indie Films is a reader supported publication: if you’d like to upgrade your subscription for $5/mo or $50 a year, or to learn more about marketing and PR for your #IndieFilm and work with me, click here.
Kelli McNeil-Yellen is a twenty year marketing and PR pro who finally made the leap to indie filmmaking with her award-winning Slamdance film DARUMA, now available on platforms. Learn more about DARUMA here. To work with Kelli, click here.