What does the Distributor do?

Firstly Distributors have to find a production team that will fund the film. Large distribution companies would have a production team already. They also have to find a suitable audience to see if the film that they are creating would sell at box office. They need to find out who would see the film, why would they want to se4e it, and how people who aren’t that bothered about seeing it can be persuaded to see the film. Distributors would also put the film on the market to sell the film, to make the most money that they can they have to be strategic. They’d have to choose an opening weekend that wont clash with other big block buster films. If they choose a similar date then they won’t make as much money because people will want to see the other film too, and the public do not generally want to see 2 films in one weekend, they’d choose one film or the other. If they have a good opening weekend then the film will create good word of mouth, which is the most effective way of advertising a film, because the public trust to their friends and family more than they trust advertisements, on whether a film is good or not.

The distributor also decides on how many prints of the film that they will make and sell to cinemas around the world/country. Creating prints is expensive, so if the distributor chooses to make too many prints then the film will not make as much money. They also decide when they will release prints to the cinemas (opening weekend). Distributors are responsible for making sure that the prints get to the cinemas that have bought the prints.

They need to make as much money as they can, so they need to advertise as much as they can, one way of advertising is by creating a promotional partnership, for example, a distributor could make a partnership with McDonalds, where McDonalds would sell toys with a children’s meal that is directly associated with the film. Like if a batman film, McDonalds would then start selling batman toys with their meals.

Even though they need to advertise the film, they also need to make sure that they do not overspend on the advertising, to increase profit margins. To do this they need to figure out roughly how much their film will make at the box office.