Niche business gets real

Specialty arms like Vantage hike budgets, production

By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK

Here's an anomaly: Amid all the turmoil at Paramount in 2006, the studio's most profitable movie was a documentary picked up for no money. The micro-budget "An Inconvenient Truth" was acquired a year ago at Sundance and went on to earn more than $40 million at the global box office.

It marked an auspicious start for Paramount Vantage.

A year later, Paramount Pictures chairman-CEO Brad Grey's Jan. 10 revamp of the studio was the latest reminder that Vantage is not the studio's little "arthouse" division anymore.

Vantage will be responsible for 7 to 10 films per year -- more than any of the other three units feeding the studio pipeline, Par Pictures, DreamWorks and MTV Films/Nick Movies, even while Vantage movies will generally be far cheaper than traditional studio fare.

That's a lot of pressure for Vantage prexy John Lesher and his newly installed co-prexy Nick Meyer, formerly president of Lionsgate Intl.

Viacom's faith in the division comes at an interesting time for the specialty world. A year ago, the studios' niche arms were the darlings of the awards circuit, with pics like "Brokeback Mountain," "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck." But it's been a tough year for specialty divisions in general, with audiences cooling to "serious" films in favor of escapist fare.

At the same time, the boundaries between major and niche are blurring as parent companies request bigger budgets and more audience-friendly fare.

Vantage is a key example of those blurred lines. In its first year, Vantage reinvented the wobbly Paramount Classics, restaffed and completed lensing on seven films. The first project Grey initiated was "Babel," starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. He gave "Babel" not to Par Pics, but to Vantage.

Grey has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars in production coin and money to beef up the Vantage staff.

Lesher's first hire was Miramax alum and producer Amy Israel, who was given broad authority to structure the unit as exec VP of production and acquisitions.

Then Lesher convinced Meyer to board Vantage late in 2006 as co-president (Lesher does maintain the title of president). Among other duties, Meyer will help build a foreign sales arm, much as David Linde did at Focus Features, giving Vantage another source of coin.

Lesher explains, "While I know all about dealmaking in Hollywood, the film business is worldwide. There's a whole level of expertise that Nick knows and I don't. Nick and I also share similar sensibility in terms of taste."

Meyer says Lesher's extensive relationships are key and that the decision to leave Lionsgate and join Lesher was "a no-brainer."

The duo are almost inseparable, yet couldn't appear more different. Lesher is a quirky, cerebral type who focused on Asian studies at Harvard and then became an agent at UTA and later a partner at Endeavor.

Meyer, who likes to cut to the chase, is a festival-circuit veteran who went from the marketing ranks at Sony Pictures Classics and Screen Gems to oversee foreign sales at Lionsgate. In addition to their similar movie tastes, both men speak multiple languages. Meyer speaks French, Spanish, German and Italian; Lesher, speaks Japanese Spanish and French.

Their work philosophy?

"The key to being in this space is having some hard-and-fast rules, as well as being able to be flexible," Meyer says.

"And entrepreneurial," says Lesher, completing the thought.

Meyer's appointment completed Lesher's aggressive business plan.

The five exec veepees include Jeffrey Freedman (business affairs & operations), Rob Schulz (distribution, one of only three holdover execs), Megan Colligan (publicity and promotions) Georgia Kacandes (physical production) and Kevan Boner (finance).

Vantage has imposed a budget cap of $15 million on any film. Three or four will be filmmaker-driven prestige titles; two or three will be comedies; two or three will be genre pics, while one or two will be foreign-language films or docus.

If a project strays outside the budget ceiling, Vantage will look to foreign sales or outside partners to make up the difference.

Miramax is a co-financing partner on "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men," since the budgets for those two films exceed $15 million. Miramax gets international.

Lesher and Meyer say the unit is making a push to do more low-budget comedies. Toward that end, Vantage inked a first-look deal with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's new shingle, Gary Sanchez Prods.

"Vantage is making a great range of material across genres," says one agent. "They are easy to do business with and really support their filmmakers."

Israel says Vantage intends to be more aggressive about acquisitions this year. Vantage expects a busy Sundance Film Fest, although Lesher, Meyer and Israel all stress that they won't buy just to buy. Division also is taking two of its movies to the festival, "Year of the Dog" and "Black Snake Moan."

Israel was only three weeks into the job when she and Lesher, who started in December 2005, arrived at Sundance last year.

At the first screening of "Inconvenient Truth," featuring Al Gore, they knew they wanted it. Lesher tracked down Gore's number and phoned him. Other buyers were interested but waffled. By the time they moved, the deal with Lesher was closed. It marked Lesher's first and only acquisition so far.

When Grey assumed the reins at Paramount, the Viacom-Par plan was to fill the exec ranks with people who'd never done the job before, and who would bring a fresh perspective to the studio. But Grey's rule has been marked by a number of high-profile departures, including the abrupt exit of Par Pics prexy Gail Berman and co-president of production Allison Shearmur on Jan. 10.

Studio has gone through the sort of tumult that few (if any) studio regimes have ever experienced. That includes the split of Viacom and CBS, the buy of DreamWorks, the firing of Grey's boss Tom Freston and Sumner Redstone's public tirade against Tom Cruise.

In the beginning, there was buzz that Lesher -- who had repped a stable of filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, Alberto Gonzalez Inarritu and others -- would also be a casualty.

Clearly the job hasn't been easy, but he's maneuvered treacherous waters. Following the mandate to rename Par Classics, the team came up with the Vantage name. According to Lesher, it means having the best view from which to see the world, tying in nicely with the iconic mountain featured in Par's log.

With the latest changes on the Melrose lot, that view just got a little clearer.