Nightmare on logistics street: release of '8 Films to Die For' was a pain, but may have broken ground in film distribution.

When a film director suggested releasing eight low-budget horror movies to be shown for one weekend only, Mark Borde couldn't believe his own reaction. "I actually said, 'That's a good idea,'" recalled Borde, co-president of Freestyle Releasing LLC, an independent film distributor in Malibu.

The anthology "8 Films to Die For" opened in 488 theaters nationwide on Nov. 17. During its three-day lifespan, it grossed $2.3 million to rank number 10 in the weekend box office competition.

"8 Films" amounted to an ad-hoc film festival. Each theater agreed to show three films on Friday, another three on Saturday and then. two on Sunday. Each film had two showings. As it worked out, the fest turned in strong numbers for per-screen revenues ($4,735), beating six of the top 10 films, according to data from Exhibitor Relations Co. All the other films among the top 10 had at least 1,200 screens.

Perhaps Borde would have reacted differently if the initial suggestion hadn't come from Courtney Solomon, director of last summer's "An American Haunting." That film, distributed by Freestyle, grossed more than $20 million and was, in Borde's words, "a homerun for us."

Solomon's follow-up project--"8 Films"--was based on a marketing formula developed for "Haunting." It allowed the entrepreneur to reach his core audience of 18- to 34-year-old males in a more cost-effective way than the major studios.

According to Borde, studios usually distribute a film by picking a date, spending $20 million on advertising, putting the movie in 3,000 or more theaters and hoping for the best. Even the ad spending follows a formula, with set percentages going to TV, radio, Internet and newspapers.

But "Haunting" used billboards and the Internet to reach its target audience. For "8 Films," Freestyle repeated that-strategy, buying outdoor ads in 35 top markets and banners on horror-related Web sites. As a kicker, the distributor bought a few cable spots on MTV and Spike TV, both channels that target young males.

However, some in the industry point out that while the message reached the core horror audience, it didn't expand it to the mainstream.

"When you release a movie, you need a sense of urgency that only TV and the Internet can create," said David Garber, chief executive of Lantern Lane Entertainment LLC, an independent film distribution consultancy in Calabasas which did not work on "8 Films." "Publicity like outdoors is great, but it works as an adjunct to a more compelling campaign."

Like Borde, Garber liked the notion of an anthology when he first heard it.

However, Borde said, the execution famed out much trickier than he expected.

"It was a great idea," he said in retrospect, "but a logistical nightmare."

Swimming upstream

The project started during the summer with Solomon choosing the slate of films. Although horror is the red-hot genre in Hollywood fight now, with the major studios releasing one new horror title nearly every week, there are still good films that can't find distribution, even in the direct-to-DVD market. Solomon looked for high-quality movies the studios had passed on, allowing him to market them as "Films the Studios Don't Want You to See."

All of the titles carried an "R" rating. The casts featured only one marquee name, the title character in "Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror." Because these films probably would never get a theatrical release by a studio, the filmmakers were willing to make deals.

With the film rights secure, the economic problems began in earnest. Normally a movie ships to theaters in two cans, but this project required 16 cans to each theater, multiplying the duplication and shipping costs. Then projectionists balked at having to show so many films in short order, so Freestyle had to hire extra projectionists at its expense.

Ticketing emerged as an early headache. At first, Freestyle wanted to sell a three-day pass for all eight movies. However, the computer systems at theater chains aren't programmed for such an occurrence. Ditto for the online ticket services like Fandango and MovieTickets.com. The project quickly shifted back into regular mode with customers buying separate tickets for each showing.

Convincing theater owners to stay with the project required old-fashioned, one-on-one persuasion. "Every step of the way we had to make things easy for the exhibitors so they wouldn't just say 'forget it'," Borde admitted.

With the gross of $2.3 million cut in half (the theater's share) and spread over eight films, plus the costs of marketing and distribution, the project lost money in theaters. But then, so do most movies, even big-studio releases.

"Very few movies hit black ink in theaters," Borde explained. "What you hope for is huge awareness, and to earn back part of your costs. The big money is in DVD, television and foreign sales. In DVD, there's still tens of millions of dollars for films that have created an awareness in the theater."

"The market for horror in video is always strong," said Garber. "This concept is great for video because you can put it out as a DVD set. So as long as the window between the theatrical release and the DVD is short--and I'm sure it will be--it's a smart move."

The DVD release will start in early 2007, but one of the eight films, "The Abandoned," proved so popular Freestyle plans to release it as a single in theaters on Jan. 12.

At a recent industry event, the president of a major distribution company congratulated Borde, saying if "8 Films" succeeded, all the studios would dust off their old movies and release them as anthologies. Borde just wished them luck.

"Other people will emulate this, but that doesn't mean it will work," he said. "And if it does, then imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

BY JOEL RUSSEL

Staff Reporter