Between the height of the DVD market in 2004 and the start of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, the number of mid-budget theatrical releases in the U.S. declined by 40 percent, an annual loss of $1 billion in ticket sales, according to an analysis of Comscore data. And in 2023, independently distributed films grossed an average of just $400,000 apiece.
Those are the stats John Fithian tossed out while walking us through his new platform, Attend. The former CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) sees the data points as indicative of the key challenge facing exhibitors today: There is not enough product in movie theaters, and the indie films that are in theaters aren’t getting the proper reach or exposure.
Attend from the aptly named The Fithian Group is an online marketplace in which creators can select theaters across the country in which to screen their movie. Fithian sees it as a means to not just facilitate distribution, but to do so more strategically.
“Quite a few independent distributors are freaking brilliant at distribution and marketing, but they don’t have the time, and they don’t have the resources,” Fithian told IndieWire.
A distributor may love your movie, but so often all they can offer is a token, day-and-date release option on a handful of screens and on streaming. Fithian says that’s because, well, getting a movie into theaters is hard — and expensive — and most distributors are bogged down with a minutiae of administrative tasks. Find someone to deliver your DCPs, another to be your theatrical marketer, yet another to distribute advertising assets, and a fourth to make your one sheets…
It’s a lot. And Fithian says it’s “old fashioned,” unnecessary, and results in a lot of “wasted effort.”
“It’s people using relationships with people that they know to book films, to enter those film bookings on spreadsheets, and to waste a whole bunch of time doing manual things like sending out invoices and collecting paper checks,” he said. “In the modern world, this is crazy.”
With Attend, all of those third-party partners will be available to distributors in one place, and it will give distributors more time to pair the right movie with the right theater. The “right movie” is one where the film’s audience matches demographic data for that theater — the “right” theater — whether it be the people who er, attend, most frequently or the folks who don’t go enough because their local theater doesn’t offer enough targeted options for them.
That’s where AI and fancy algorithms come in. If you’re a Marvel movie going wide, you’ll have no use for Attend. As a matter of fact, you can pretty much stop reading and close this story right now. But small-to-mid-budget fare could sure use the help figuring out what theaters their movie would actually perform in. Or, stick with the old ways: Book a few art houses in New York and Los Angeles and hope for the best.
Attend will offer distributors hyper-focused digital ads, the ability to reach local influencers, and to target specific communities without having to worry about national ad-buys. They can shop between theaters that best align with their strategy. It works the other way too, where theater owners can shop for the movies that would best fit their audience.
As of this writing, Attend hasn’t even been built yet. The goal is to launch the platform as a Beta in both the U.S. and Australia this July. The Beta will feature a selection of 10-15 films, many already handpicked by Fithian and his team. None of the films are alike. There’s a $60 million action film, a Bollywood movie, dramas in the French and Spanish languages, and an indie Christmas film made for half a million dollars… Fithian says a faith-based movie would be a good fit for the platform too.
If all goes according to plan and these movies succeed, Attend will launch with hundreds of films as an open marketplace by summer 2026. Until then, Attend is in its “Alpha” phase, using Fithian’s proof of concept on the low-budget rom-com “You, Me & Her,” which opens today, on Valentine’s Day. “You, Me & Her” will open in 200-plus theaters and is targeting those that over-index with couples, parents, and comedy fans. Hyper-targeting does not mean hyperlocal: “You, Me & Her” is playing everywhere from B&B Theaters in Kansas City to small venues in Alaska and Guam. The film will work in some places and struggle in others, but all the data they collect will go toward building Attend’s Beta. In case you haven’t heard, data is our new currency.
“You, Me & Her” on its own isn’t going to save the box office, but Fithian hopes the test proves that his model is way overdue.
“They’re going to be selling a thousand times more tickets to ‘Captain America’ than they are to our little movie, and we understand that. That’s their bread and butter,” Fithian said. “But they need these little films too, so they get it, and they’re really supportive.”
