Vancouver: Talking geese and gay romantic comedies have the kind of audience appeal that can rescue Canada’s woebegone domestic box office, predicts the man charged with expanding the national cinema’s share of ticket sales.

‘In the past, we may have allowed ourselves to become too preoccupied with auteur filmmaking,’ admits Richard Stursberg, executive director of Telefilm Canada, speaking on the theme of audience development Nov. 13 to members of Vancouver’s branch of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. ‘That resulted in a period when Canadian films won a lot of prizes but not much commercial success. Now, we need to support a range of genres with more comedies, more family movies and kids pictures, more thrillers and more romances.’

In 2001, Canada’s total box office was $800 million, $700 million of which was generated by English-Canadian ticket buyers. While Canada’s English-language films struggled to claim 1% of the box office, Quebec’s industry claimed 9% (or $9 million) of the French market. The goal, set by the federal government, is to expand the overall domestic box office take to 5% by 2006, representing a daunting $40-million target in today’s dollars. (The plan is to boost the French-Canadian share to $12 million.)

Variety in film offerings, says Stursberg, helps markets as diverse as Australia, the U.K. and France claim anywhere from 8% to 40% of their domestic box-office receipts. Telefilm’s new policy, he says, banks on marketable content and strict distribution guarantees to tap a greater share of total box office.

‘We are generally not prepared to invest more than $1 million in a film if it does not stand a reasonable chance of making more than $1 million at the box office,’ says Stursberg. ‘If the film can credibly hit that hurdle [based on detailed distribution forecasts], we are prepared to invest from $1 million to $3 million in the project this year. Next year, we will be prepared to invest up to $4 million.

In the past five years, Men With Brooms grossed $3.9 million and The Red Violin grossed $3.4 million. To meet the goal of generating at least $28 million per year from English-language films alone, Canadian producers would have to make seven or eight films of equal box-office clout each year. Put in other terms, English Canada would have to generate 17 films each year with the box-office performance of ExistenZ (at $1.6 million).

‘Over the last six months, we have begun to strengthen our requirements concerning theatrical release with our distribution partners,’ Stursberg says. ‘We have insisted on hard commitments for minimum levels of investment in prints and advertising for any film that is produced with the support of Telefilm. It’s hard to disagree with the basic logic: for a film to be a box-office success, it has to be released on enough screens for it to be available in an appreciable number of theatres. Then adequate advertising must be bought to promote the film and to direct Canadians to the screens where it is available.’

Telefilm is focusing on three aspects of the distributors’ participation:

* The marketing plan. It must detail how the box-office revenues are built up given the demographics of the film, the screen strategy proposed and the performance of comparable films. Also, it must show how the anticipated advertising spend drives the revenues, including the type of media targeted, tie-ins and cross-promotions.

* The size of the minimum guarantee. Telefilm will ensure that the minimum guarantee, as a percentage of the cost of the project, is larger than the associated domestic television presales and that the distributor has real money at risk at the front end of the project.

* The size and strength of the P&A commitment that will be triggered if the film that is finally delivered lives up to expectations. Telefilm will ensure that good films are not subject to perfunctory release strategies and that they are released and promoted aggressively to achieve their full box-office potential.

‘To support this new approach, we have changed our internal decision-making process,’ says Stursberg. ‘Where in the past, projects were considered regionally, any project that is asking for an investment of more than $1 million will be compared nationally with every project of the same budget size from whatever region. This is to ensure that we are financing absolutely the best films regardless of their origin.

‘It is also important to note that Telefilm Canada is not shutting out emerging talent or lower-budget productions,’ he adds. ‘In fact, we are setting aside $6 million for English-language films that request less than $1 million to Telefilm, and in a similar way, funding has also been reserved for French-language films.’

Telefilm’s Independent Low Budget Feature Film Assistance Program exists for feature films with production budgets up to $750,000.

‘Other countries have succeeded in building their domestic cinemas,’ says Stursberg. ‘We can too, by encouraging more audience-friendly films and distributing them well.’

Stursberg’s three-city tour to talk about audience development included stops in Toronto and Montreal.

-www.telefilm.gc.ca