It’s Showtime for Projects Heading to the Big Screen

There’s a new player in feature films these days, a production company that is attracting big-name actors and directors, tackling difficult material and, with the three Oscar nominations nailed by “Gods and Monsters” earlier this month, even winning academy recognition.

The new force in the movie business? An old stalwart in the television business: Showtime.

Driven by decreasing sources of major-studio movie product and by a desire to enhance its image, the pay-cable television network has begun making so-called “theatricals”--feature films intended for release in theaters--at the rate of 10 to 15 a year. The budgets are low--from $3 million to $5 million--but some filmmakers say that has made all the difference.

Showtime co-financed and co-developed “Gods and Monsters,” the offbeat, $4-million feature about horror movie director James Whale. In fact, Clive Barker, one of the film’s producers, says there would be no “Gods and Monsters”--and thus no Oscar nods for writer-director Bill Condon and actors Ian McKellen and Lynn Redgrave--without Showtime.

“God bless them. At the key time, they were there with a million dollars,” Barker said of the scrappy network. “They left the practicalities of making the picture to [others]. But certainly, their coming into this picture was the difference between it being made and not being made.”

Such words are sweet for Jerry Offsay, Showtime’s programming president, and his boss, Matthew C. Blank. For five years, they have worked to convince top filmmakers that Showtime is in the theatrical movie-making business. Their pitch: Once a Showtime-financed film is complete, its creators have a 60-to-90-day window in which they can shop it around to distributors for theatrical release.

If a distributor bites--as Lions Gate did with “Gods and Monsters”--Showtime sells the film (though retaining pay-television rights). If no deal is made, the film premieres on Showtime. Offsay and Blank think of it as a win-win proposition, and an increasing number of feature filmmakers seem to agree.

In the past year, Jodie Foster and Dustin Hoffman have produced movies with Showtime (“Baby Dance,” which premiered last summer, and “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” which airs March 28). The network fully financed and produced “Down in the Delta,” Maya Angelou’s recent directorial debut, which starred Wesley Snipes and Alfre Woodard and was released in theaters by Miramax. And the network has just announced plans to make “Noriega,” a dramatization of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega’s final days in power, to be directed by Roger Spottiswoode, whose last film (the James Bond sequel “Tomorrow Never Dies”) grossed $125 million at the domestic box office.

Most Projects End Up Premiering on Showtime

So far, the vast majority of Showtime-produced features have ended up premiering on the cable network--in part, distributors say, because the network drives a hard bargain, insisting on being completely reimbursed for its costs while keeping valuable pay-TV rights. Only four premiered theatrically--the Paul Rudnick-scripted “Jeffrey,” McKellen’s “Richard III,” “Gods and Monsters” and “Down in the Delta.” But six more had theatrical releases after premiering on cable.

“For five years now, we’ve been saying, ‘Bring us your theatrical movie. Prove the studios were wrong in passing on it.’ We want people to think of us as another sponsor who can step up to help get a movie made,” Offsay said, ticking off the numerous Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Award nominations that Showtime-produced movies have also racked up during the past year. The recognition, he said, “has been a long time in coming.”

It’s all part of a larger strategy to turn the second-fiddle cable network behind HBO into what Blank, Showtime’s chairman and chief executive officer, calls “an important place on the dial.” As Offsay often says, their job is to make people feel they’re missing something if they don’t have Showtime. First and foremost, Offsay is out to change people’s perceptions, and as amorphous as that goal is, it affords him some freedom.

“We’re the only film company in town that doesn’t have to worry about box office,” Offsay said happily. “And while my friends at the networks have to worry about ratings, we don’t need [a certain number of] eyeballs on any one night. Plus, we don’t have to worry about [a film’s] length, about censorship or ad breaks. All we have to worry about is getting noticed.”

What that means for filmmakers is that Showtime, much more than a major movie studio, is willing to gamble. Showtime was the place, for example, where Anjelica Huston’s “Bastard Out of Carolina” and Adrian Lyne’s “Lolita” debuted (the latter was later released in theaters). The network, whose target audience is adults aged 30 to 50, has shown repeatedly that it will risk controversial subject matter, first-time directors and packages that Hollywood stereotypes often prevent from coming together.

“As much as I would love to do a historical film or a science-fiction film, the Hollywood studios would never consider me. I get sent pimp movie scripts,” said Ernest Dickerson, the former cinematographer whose latest directorial effort, “Blind Faith,” was backed by Showtime. Dickerson, who is black, is currently developing a feature film with Showtime about Edgar Allan Poe and is about to shoot “Strange Justice,” a straight-to-cable project about Clarence Thomas’ struggle to become a Supreme Court justice.

“I don’t think in terms of the small screen but in terms of the big screen. But it’s only at a place like Showtime that I can do that,” Dickerson said. “You still have to contend with low budgets, but they’re willing to handle material that major studios would never handle.”

Angelou, the writer and poet whose $3.5-million film “Down in the Delta” has so far made $5.7 million in theaters, agreed.

“I felt comfortable at Showtime. They didn’t talk to me like I was a ninny, and I appreciated that,” she said, adding that despite her inexperience as a feature film director, Showtime executives honored her ideas and “never once tried to get around me.” While she also feels well-treated by Miramax, she has opted to develop her next feature project--”The Amen Corner,” a James Baldwin play set in Harlem--at Showtime.

“I like the fact that Showtime stood by me, and I’m a firm believer in going out with who you came in with. It’s the good thing to do,” she said. Besides, when it comes to “The Amen Corner,” Offsay and Blank “both said I could have whatever I wanted. Offsay is serious, intelligent and honest. I trust him.”

Indeed, many conversations about Showtime’s appeal seem to center on people’s respect for Offsay, the lanky and energetic former president of RKO Pictures who was an executive vice president at ABC before joining Showtime in 1994. Cassian Elwes, the head of the William Morris Agency’s independent film division, called Offsay a “straight shooter” who has assembled a talented creative staff. Actor Jon Voight, who made his directorial debut on Showtime and is developing several projects there, agreed.

“I don’t want to waste time,” Voight said. “Jerry is quite candid. If I say, ‘What’s the deal?,’ he’ll tell me. I like that.”

Blank, Offsay’s boss, simply calls him “the best hire of my career.”

Offsay and his team of acquisitions executives were at the Sundance Film Festival last month, as they are every year. So far, besides “Gods and Monsters,” five other Showtime-produced movies have been official festival entries (including Dickerson’s “Blind Faith”; Kevin Bacon’s directorial debut, “Losing Chase,” starring Helen Mirren and Kyra Sedgwick; and “Girls’ Night,” starring Brenda Blethyn and Kris Kristofferson). And Showtime has been known to buy completed films at Sundance as well, though its preference for well-known actors often limits its choices.

Sitting in the lobby of a Park City, Utah, hotel, Offsay admitted that, in a perfect world, he’d rather premiere all the features Showtime produces on the cable network.

“We would have much preferred to not have sold the rights [to “Delta” to Miramax], because the national attention of premiering Maya Angelou’s directing debut would have been worth millions of dollars of promotion of our service,” he said. Noting that both “Gods and Monsters” and “Richard III” premiered in theaters, he added: “Someday we’ll make a movie with Ian McKellen that will actually premiere on Showtime!”

But those sacrifices are worth it, Offsay said, if they encourage more filmmakers to “blur the lines” between television and movies by bringing their feature projects to Showtime.

“A dozen Hollywood stars have come in [to Showtime] just on the basis of hearing that Jodie Foster and Dustin Hoffman have produced movies with us--people whose agents have made a sign of the cross when we brought their names up previously,” he said. “That people are not wrinkling their noses because we are associated with them is very rewarding.”