When Marketing and Programming Align, Independent Films Win 

Edited by Rachael Garel 

There is a missed opportunity in theatrical that is hiding in plain sight. 

It’s going to seem trite and exceedingly obvious, BUT- 

If you’re marketing an independent film in a theater, you should probably sell tickets to the people who want to go see it. 

“What?” you are saying. “Of course you sell the product you are advertising!” But that’s just not always what happens with independent titles. Sometimes the demand is created, the masses are mobilized, and then….there’s just not enough showtimes. Or worse, it’s not playing at all. 

How does that happen? It goes something like this: A film’s upcoming release is scheduled. That film is believed in by the filmmaker, the production team, the distributor. They’re in agreement. Everyone must see this film. They get budgets approved and put real marketing dollars behind it. Trailer placement, social campaigns, e-blasts, the whole nine yards. Awesome, right? And the answer is yes, totally awesome! Everyone wants to see that movie now! Mission accomplished. 

Unfortunately, at the same time, that film is deemed not important enough, by a whole different set of powers that be, to fully commit screens or showtimes in time to capitalize on the demand that was created. So, the theater accepted the film’s marketing dollars, the trailers ran on their screens, and then someone (or a team of someones), completely disconnected from those marketing deals, books different films based on a totally different set of information. That movie that everyone was hyped to see? It wasn’t trending high enough on the national awareness metric used to program the theater. Never mind that a local demand was created. Guess you’ll have to wait for it to stream. 

Listen, no one is doing this on purpose. It’s not like there was some big clandestine meeting about the best way to leave money on the table and suppress independent films and distributors. This is just a classic case of the right hand not being in the loop on what the left hand is doing. 

Programming for Projections Instead of Demand

Day-to-day, programming teams are most likely looking at national gross projections and making their calls on that. We all get it. It’s safe, and better yet, it’s an easy choice in an industry filled with so many hard decisions. But those projections are only part of the equation. What gets missed is the opportunity to put thoughtful strategy behind a smaller title, with a good marketing budget, and turn that title into a niche win. 

Why a niche win? Because not every film needs to fill the big house to be a success. That’s short-sighted. In many cases, the smarter play, the incremental win, is paying equal attention to the smaller auditoriums and titles. What are the people in that area hyped to see? Put the right film in the right room, and build around the demand that exists locally, not just nationally. 

Marketing and Programming Should Be Working Together

Easy enough to say, right? So realistically, how do we find those wins? By getting marketing and programming in the same room more often. (We know we’re suggesting more meetings. Forgive us, it’s for the greater good here.) We must connect the people selling the movies with the people playing them. It’s as simple as that. When we do it’s not just creating a lineup based on Vegas odds anymore, it’s building a plan to fill seats. It’s marketing smaller titles to the right audience, matching those titles to the right auditorium, and building showtimes around how people actually behave instead of default patterns. 

Independent Films Need Different Booking Logic

Instead of asking what a film is projected to gross, we should be asking what we can do to help that film fill our seats.  

Independent films perform differently when exhibitors get behind them. Support changes outcomes. When a theater commits to selling a film instead of just playing it, the results can be drastically different. 

And, you know us, we don’t deal in conjecture. We get out there and try it out ourselves.  

What Happens When It Actually Works

When working with Viva Pictures on The Amazing Maurice and Hitpig, we leaned into the efforts of the marketing team and coordinated the programming to match their efforts in targeted theater locations. The result? Several of those locations ranked among the top-grossing theaters in the country. Weekly admissions increased. Profitability improved. Market share lifted. How that for moving the needle?? 

We applied the same thinking with Outsider Pictures on Bendito Corazón. We booked it early into theaters with strong Hispanic audiences, then supported it with tailored showtimes, social engagement, and outreach into local communities. The result outperformed expectations. Out of 495 theaters nationally, those supported, independent, locations ranked as high as number 5. 

That is not luck. That is strategy. Local audience knowledge and exhibitor advocacy can outperform standard booking logic. 

The Incentives Are Misaligned

The problem is that the current system isn’t really set up to reward that. Marketing and Programming are both doing their jobs, but they are not always working toward the same goals. Marketing can hit partnership revenue goals. Programming can build a lineup that makes sense on paper. And still, we’re leaving money on the table, and arguably worse, leaving good films unseen.  

If Marketing is tied to partnership revenue, it should also be tied to whether those films actually overperform. Did they beat average market share? Did they generate incremental admissions? Did the campaign turn into people actually showing up? Programming should be tied to those same outcomes. 

When both of these teams are on the same page, tied to the same measurables, decisions get better. Timing gets better. And we actually start catching the demand we created instead of watching it slip away. 

We don’t need to overhaul the entire system to make that happen. We just need to make it matter. Tie even a small portion, call it 20 percent, of bonus goals to shared outcomes. Market share overperformance. Partnership-supported titles beating baseline. Incremental admissions from campaigns. Real wins that both teams influence. 

And how do these newly partnered teams hit their goals? They plan campaigns and bookings together before a film opens, not after everything is already locked. They tie booking support to marketing investment, so if they are spending to create demand, they’re also positioned to catch it. They let audience demand inform programming decisions, and build flexibility into showtimes so you can react to what is happening. 

Making Programming and Marketing work together does not grow the business incrementally. It can grow it exponentially. 

Not only will this lead to box office wins, it will lead to industry wins. 

The Bigger Picture for Theatrical

If theatrical is going to grow again, more distributors must succeed. A24 started small and became a major force. Same story with NEON. We see films like Iron Lung gross $40M at the box office from a startup Centurion Films and Terrifier 1–3  grossing $70M collectively from Iconic and Cineverse. The industry needs to fill the gaps of all the consolidation taking place at the majors. The shift is happening now, and companies like Western Film Services, Vertical, Variance, Black Bear, Magenta Light Studios, Seismic Releasing, IFC, Viva, and Tuckman Media are making the effort to connect films to theaters. 

The industry needs more companies making that leap. 

Why does that matter? Because we need more distributors capable of releasing $40 million box office films. That does not happen unless exhibitors help create the runway. 

That means taking more chances on smaller distributors and supporting them with a holistic approach. Not always chasing the most obvious (and sometimes lukewarm) deal sitting in front of you.  

Because today’s independent partner is where tomorrow’s major supplier comes from. 

Supporting smaller distributors today can help create the major suppliers the business needs tomorrow. 

And if we want a healthier theatrical ecosystem, we cannot just wait for more majors to appear. We have to help build them.