‘I think we have a terrible distribution system [in Canada],’ says Vincenzo Natali, sipping a glass of wine in a Toronto restaurant after a day editing Company Man, his US$7.5-million sophomore feature. The 32-year-old Toronto-based director may not have made any movies in the four years between Cube and his latest, but he did get an eye-opening business education that informs his reflection on Cube’s domestic performance, which he describes as ‘shameful.’

‘One of the things I learned with Cube is that in all the various territories where it was released, the distributors who put a lot into the film got a lot back, and the ones that didn’t put money into it got very little back,’ he says. ‘It’s a very simple equation. The reality is that there just isn’t a strong incentive for Canadian distributors to put a lot behind a film. In a sense, distributors here are rewarded for not taking risks, because the government subsidizes a Canadian release, therefore what do they have to lose? They just have to make a nominal effort, put the film into theatres, and then they get their kickback. Better that than risk a lot of money on a small film.’

Natali believes, however, that some Canadian films, such as John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, do get strong support in their home and native land. (Canadian distributor TVA International invested $1 million of the teen horror flick’s $4.5-million budget into promotion and advertising.)

Natali’s career seemed on a meteoric rise, but it then slowed in four years of development limbo, both in Canada and Hollywood. The pull of Tinseltown is perhaps stronger on Natali than on other successful Canadian directors, not only because of his predilection for science fiction, but also because he was born in the U.S. and holds dual citizenship. Natali’s training began at Toronto’s Ryerson Polytechnic University, followed by a stint as storyboard artist at Nelvana. His big break, however, came at the Canadian Film Centre, where he made several short films, including the half-hour Elevated. The story of three people trapped in an elevator, Elevated went on to receive a Genie nomination for best short film.

With its premise about characters trapped in an enclosed space, Elevated served as a warm-up for Cube. With its futuristic scenario and ambitious visuals, achieved through free services from Toronto F/X shop C.O.R.E Digital Pictures, Cube became an unlikely selection for the CFC Feature Film Project. The film tells the story of six strangers who wake to find themselves in a series of interconnected rooms, each one of which is a cube within one massive cube drifting through space.

Cube won the Citytv Award for best Canadian first feature at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival, and then, following domestic release by Cineplex Odeon Films, it had a brief run before disappearing off the national radar. But such was not the case elsewhere, especially in France.

The marquee at a multiplex on the Champs-Elysees in the summer of 1999 would have advertised the latest Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts blockbusters – right beside this Canadian movie made with the equivalent of $1 million in cash and donated services. According to Natali, the film grossed US$6 million in France and US$4 million in Japan. The film’s Kubrick-inspired style and existential themes caught on big with foreign audiences, but did little business at home.

In an effort to capitalize on the film’s overall success, Lions Gate Films has a sequel in the works titled Cube 2: Hypercube. The distributor approached Natali with the idea, but he declined to be involved. ‘I spent enough time in the Cube,’ he offers with a laugh. ‘The good news is that the CFC had very wisely held on to the sequel rights, which they sold for a very sizable amount of money.’ The bad news for Natali is that he did not see any of that money, but he’s not bitter, adding, ‘I’m really happy the CFC was able to pay off our film.’ And, after all, sequels are the most sincere form of flattery.

Long delayed follow-up

Logic might dictate that with the international box office Cube did on a small budget, Natali would have had no problem raising money for his next film, but not so. Working on deals on both sides of the border, nothing panned out. Hollywood was already pigeonholing him as a B sci-fi director, inundating him with cheesy scripts.

‘Anything with a Roman numeral at the end of the title, I was offered,’ he says. ‘I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but [making a film is] two years of your life, so you want to work on something you believe in.’

Natali was meanwhile trying to mount a major project of his own, a US$20-million sci-fi thriller called Splice. One of the lessons he took away from that experience was to always have several projects on the go, because he invested so much time trying to get Splice off the ground, yet it remains on the back burner. Also, bigger projects bring a whole new scale of issues.

‘I should have focused on making a film for under $6 million, but instead I was trying to make a film that was over $12 million,’ he says. ‘Once you get into that budget range, it becomes very difficult for an independent financier to become involved and you’re in the studio system, which is very conservative. So I spent a lot of time knocking on doors and really not getting anywhere.’

Answering those doors were Robert Lantos at Serendipity Point Films and Bill House et al at Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Production. Natali’s main hurdle, so it seemed, was convincing these potential producers that the film’s lead creature character could be credibly constructed in the computer. To that end, Natali ran tests with his regular collaborators, director of photography Derek Rogers and C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures. But in the end SPF and AAMPP balked.

‘The reason I was given was simply that it was too expensive, which is understandable,’ he says. ‘It’s a large film, certainly for someone whose first film was $1 million. The budget was really double what they expected it would be. Do I think they made a mistake? Yes, because I think it was a very commercial project. I really believed it would be a good investment, and I don’t think US$20 million is actually a lot of money to spend on a film like that. It would have looked like a $40-million film.’

Company Man, which Natali describes as ‘What if Franz Kafka wrote a James Bond movie?’ was written by Brian King, an L.A. friend with whom he had collaborated on another aborted project at Warner Bros. The production of Company Man (whose title will likely change due to conflict with a Paramount release) seems to illustrate the state of the Canadian industry: the film was shot in Toronto with an entirely Canadian crew and cast, with the exception of leads Jeremy Northam and Lucy Liu. It is, however, a U.S. production by Pandora Films to be distributed by Miramax Films, and serves as another example of local talent servicing U.S. interests. Natali says he wanted Company Man to be a Canadian production.

‘I took this film to a certain production company here first and they turned it down,’ he says. ‘But, to be fair, it’s a film by an American writer and it takes place in the United States. It’s not a Canadian story. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t picked up.’

Natali describes his next project, Nothing, as ‘100% Canadian content,’ and yet, it also has no Canadian financing. The comedy stars Cube alumni David Hewlett and Andrew Miller, who came up with the story with Natali. Produced by Steve Hoban (Ginger Snaps) of newly formed 49th Parallel, money for the project was raised from various international sources. Although industry insiders look upon Company Man as Natali’s gateway into Hollywood blockbuster moviemaking, Nothing has a budget of only $3 million and will be shot on high-definition video.

‘It’s just that all the elements are in place for this,’ he says. ‘We can make it. As soon as [nine months’ post-production on] Company Man is done, everything’s there, ready to go, and it’s a film I really want to make. I just want to be prolific. I spent four years between movies, and I never want to go through that again.’

Despite the fact that Canada has done little in the way of promotion or investment to help foster Natali’s career, the director says he has not ruled out making another Canadian film.

‘My rule of thumb is I’ll just go wherever anyone will have me.’