Indie is taking over, but the battle is uphill.
While conglomerates are wondering how to convince movie goers to trust them with their dollar, cinemas are flooded by emails and petitions from eager fans of passion indie projects all over the world, fighting to see their favourite internet sensations on the big screen.
On April 10th, GLITCH production released the trailer for the final act of their hit series ‘The Amazing Digital Circus’. While fans anticipated the teaser, the surprise announcement paired with it took the internet by storm: The final one hour will be available for a limited two-weeks run starting June 4th in cinemas across the US, Latin America, Japan and Canada, two weeks prior to the YouTube global release on the 19th of June.
While congratulations were in order for this giant leap for indie animation, global fans of the show seemed less than enthused, as an old sensitive topic for fans of any medium ever was once more ripped open: why are some regions more deserving of recognition than others or in this case, ‘why were only 4 regions in the West allowed to experience ‘The Amazing Digital Circus’ in cinema, while everyone else would have to dodge the internet for spoilers during the two weeks following the premiere?’
A fierce exchange between the two camps followed, only for the situation to heat up enough for GLITCH CEO Kevin Lerdwichagul to come forward with a statement to social media last night, 11th of April. For anyone familiar with the way theatres work nowadays, Lerdwichagul’s revelation that GLITCH wished to screen the final episode across the entire globe, but the negotiations with theatre chains have been more than difficult, came as no surprise.
The truth is theaters never recovered from COVID. In Europe, attendance is slowly getting on its feet, nonetheless the 24% gap from pre-COVID times seems to be less and less a temporary hindrance and more of a new equilibrium. That, combined with shorter windows of less than 90 days per film and the need for films to feel like events a.k.a. slowly trying to bring them down as a SVOD/AVOD marketing tool, makes it increasingly harder for theatres to survive unless they rely on the big money of the big boys. This unfortunate need for dependency hurts both cinemas and indie/mid-tier filmmakers who have to prove at least a fraction of the demand of blockbusters if they want their films to be shown.
Earlier this year, another indie film ‘Iron Lung’ by famous YouTuber Markiplier, fought the same battle and ultimately won with the help of fans, who petitioned their local cinemas, rallying demand. The film was number one at the box office domestically on its opening day and on a humble budget of 3-4 million, it saw a return of 40 million by the end of its run. It was a monumental victory for digital creators, who until then had rarely been seen as anything more than a comfortable stream of influencer/creator marketing for conglomerates. Markiplier proved a threat and GLITCH is looking to make the same mark in Indie Animation.
Since the statement from GLITCH, fans of ‘The Amazing Digital Circus’ have, at least for now, mended their differences and patched up their disappointments. They are sharpening their templates and translator tools to write every cinema in their vicinity, demanding that the film be put on the program for June. Their competitors for timeslots will be Amazon MGM’s ‘Masters of the Universe’ and Paramount’s ‘Scary Movie 6’, premiering June 5th.
We will continue to follow up on the situation, as hopefully more and more countries get added to the Amazing Digital List of The Final Act Screenings.
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