Studios and indies, unite

PATRICK GOLDSTEIN gets it mostly right [“Come On, Writers, Script Your Futures,” Nov. 20], but there’s more. For every story of success in independent film financing, there are 10 of unfinanced projects, pictures that fall apart at the last minute, lose their financing, lead actor or other element. Being an entrepreneur in success is great, but you have to be able to collect on that share of the gross. And the picture is even more precarious if you enter the world of foreign sales.

Although often frustrating and collaborative to an extreme, in the studio world at least you know the financier will be there. While the new independents offer creative freedom and occasionally quick answers, they cannot sustain more than a few failures, whereas studios, with their corporate parents and libraries, can and do. And that’s really the secret of the movie business -- staying in business. The entrepreneurs Goldstein mentions -- Lucas, Jackson, Spielberg -- all initially found their biggest success in the studio system before going independent.

What’s the answer, then, for filmmakers? A healthy system that allows for and supports both -- studio productions and independent ones -- and doesn’t waste its time with labor unrest.

Jeffrey Korchek

Encino