Can a movie about Mannerheim reach an audience of a million?

Troubled film's cost estimate based on huge box-office success

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By Veli-Pekka Lehtonen
     
      There are tons of questions related to the planned Mannerheim film, of which at least the following are surely of interest to the most inquisitive:
      Where can the millions required for the film’s budget possibly come from? What is the actual budget of the film, branded as the most expensive Finnish movie of all times? What kind of cinema attendance estimates has the production been based on?
      And...will the film ever be made?
     
Let us start with the easiest one.
      Within the film industry it is generally believed that Mannerheim will reap excellent commercial success - that is, if the movie about the legendary WW II Finnish Field Marshal and sixth President of Finland (1944-46) C.G.E. Mannerheim ever gets completed.
      This is the assumption of not just the film’s principal production company Solar Films, but also that of its closest rivals. Apparently Solar Film has based its calculations on an attendance figure of one million.
      It sounds wild, but it is not entirely ill-founded.
      For example Norway’s most watched film at the moment is Max Manus, with more than a million bottoms on seats registed so far.
      The hit film has many similarities with Mannerheim. Max Manus is the most expensive Norwegian film ever made, its protagonist is a WW II resistance fighter, and its storyline is tangential to the Winter War and the Soviet Union.
     
Or take an example from Finland: Bad Boys – A True Story attracted 615,000 cinemagoers and is the highest-grossing Finnish film in recent history.
      Attendance figures of this sort Mannerheim should be able to reach more realistically.
      The Sibelius biopic, even with all its shortcomings, still attracted 300,000 Finns to the cinema. And unlike Sibelius, Mannerheim might just raise some interest abroad as well.
     
No precise cost estimate is available for Mannerheim.
      The Finnish Film Foundation does not make public such information and the project does not involve public money from abroad. The film has not received any public funding from abroad because, according to the information obtained by Helsingin Sanomat, no such funding has been applied for.
      A Finnish film can receive noteworthy foreign support from two sources: the Nordisk Film & TV Fond, and the Council of Europe’s Eurimages programme.
     
From either source up to half a million euros could have been obtained with optional reimbursement. As a rule, the support becomes a loan if the film makes a profit.
      The condition for getting Eurimages funding is that the film in question also has another European backer, who covers a fifth of the film’s cost. Mannerheim does not fulfil this criteria.
      Mannerheim cannot get any backing from Nordisk Film & TV Fond, because the film’s television rights have been sold to the Finnish commercial television channel MTV3, the only Nordic television company that does not belong to the Nordisk Film & TV Fond.
     
Solar Films has repeatedly announced EUR ten million as Mannerheim’s total budget, and according to sources close to Solar, the budget is currently short of a few million euros.
      Within the movie industry, many suspect that the actual budget is smaller than what has been announced.
      According to Solar Films the film’s budget cannot be compromised because of the action style of the film. A chamber drama could be produced with less money.
      The filmmakers’ rewards also eat up a sizeable part of the budget. An Oscar-winning make-up effects artist hardly works for peanuts.
     
Films in Finland are mainly funded from three sources: the Finnish Film Foundation, the film’s distribution company, and the television channel that buys the film’s TV rights.
      The Foundation’s production support to Mannerheim is EUR 470,000.
      The distribution company, which takes care of such things as the film’s marketing, shares in the expenses after having made an advance estimate of the likely box-office revenue. Often the producer and the distributor only make a profit after the film comes out on DVD.
      A cinema ticket costs around eight euros on average, of which the theatre’s cut is roughly 50%.
      Normally a top minimum advance based on likely bookings in cinemas is in the region of EUR 400,000.
      In Mannerheim’s case this may well be more like a million euros upfront.
      The film’s distributor is the Danish Nordisk Film, Solar Film’s parent company, into whose lap producer Markus Selin poured the film’s entire funding crisis last week.
     
The price of the television rights to Mannerheim is also around a million euros.
      This, too, is several times as much as for an average Finnish film.
      What is likely to increase the price is the film’s hit potential combined with the possibility of a follow-up television series.
      Mannerheim is yet to clinch an international distribution deal and the price of any such deal is difficult to estimate. It may well be that Mannerheim as a story is too “Finnish”, albeit that it is supposed to be in several languages: Finnish, English, Swedish, Russian, German, and French. Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951) was, after all, a pretty cosmopolitan chap.
      Then again, surprise interest towards the film may also spring up, for example in Russia.
     
Among the definite financers of the film there are around ten Finnish companies contributing through “marketing cooperation” deals.
      The cooperation usually means for example free advertising, logistics, and accommodation. The value of such sponsorship deals is around EUR 1.5 million, again a record in its class.
      Further donations may also come through commemorative medal sales and sundry support organisations such as the Champion of Liberty Association.
     
With the backing of all the above-mentioned parties there is around EUR 5 million in the film’s budget.
      EUR 3 million has already been spent in pre-production.
      The remaining funds have to be found from venture capitalists, firms, and organisations. Already a budget running to 6 million euros can be considered large in the European cinema.
     
Solar Films is still conducting negotiations to secure further funding.
      One funding possibility is the issuing of shares. If that was to take place, Solar Films would give up its sole authority over the separate production company Liberty Productions, set up for the film.
     
A less significant but perhaps more public means is the sale of "supporters' tickets" with a face-value of 50 euros, entitling the holder to a seat when and if the film is released.
      Producer Markus Selin does not regard this as a serious means of financing as such: he estimates sales could be from 1,000 to 5,000.
      After costs are taken out, each ticket sold would be worth around EUR 30 to the producers of the film.
      If the film founders and is not released, ticket-buyers will get their money refunded.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.2.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Danish Nordisk Film pulls out of Mannerheim film project (24.2.2009)
  Renny Harlin´s film crew for Mannerheim biopic includes double Oscar winner (3.12.2008)

Links:
  Mannerheim on the Internet Movie Database
  Solar Films
  C.G.E. Mannerheim (Wikipedia)

VELI-PEKKA LEHTONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
veli-pekka.lehtonen@hs.fi