No business quite like the mockbuster business

Most of the film posters on display at the Cannes market – including one showing a distinctly Thor-like superhero wearing a red cape and brandishing a large hammer over the title God of Thunder – underline a whole category within B- and C-grade flicks: the 'mockbusters'.

White Swan is an example of a B-grade film trying to capitalise on the award-winning 2010 film Black Swan.

You have probably heard of the film Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Or Marvel's The Avengers. Or Fifty Shades of Grey.

But what about White Swan, Avengers Grimm and Darker Shades of Grey? How about Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies?

You won’t catch any of these “knock-off” feature films, many of which aim to cash in on a well-known original, at your local cinema, but they and other less blatant B- and C-grade flicks are doing booming business at the Cannes market that runs in parallel with this week’s film festival.

Sales to television and video-­on-demand companies have been strong, producers and distributors say, with China emerging as a key customer for this niche.

Those in the sector are under no illusions about what it is they are selling.

“I think there’s really good independent movies that deserve to be seen – and outside of that, there’s a bunch of crap,” says Lawrence Silverstein, vice president for sales and marketing at the Los Angeles-based company Osiris Entertainment.

Silverstein points to a poster for House of Bad on his stand – plotline: three fugitive sisters with a suitcase of stolen heroin hideout in their childhood home, which is haunted by their parents – and says: "It's not a great horror movie, but it's not bad." Internet reviews disagree.

He also showed a teaser for the crowdfunded horror-comedy Clinger, in which a teenager who gets decapitated returns to stalk his unrequited love. It looked well-paced and fairly entertaining.

At least these two films are somewhat original. Other posters on display at the Cannes market – including one showing a distinctly Thor-like superhero wearing a red cape and brandishing a large hammer over the title God of Thunder – underlined a whole category within this niche market: the "mockbusters".

These knock-offs, made to resemble small-budget versions of Hollywood blockbusters, ride the marketing slipstream of the originals to tempt people looking for something to watch at home.

“We find a similar genre and hint at it in the title,” says David Rimawi, a producer and seller at The Asylum, one of the bigger LA companies in the sector.

Naturally, the big studios in the United States are not happy about this, especially with piracy also squeezing their revenues. But the B-grade merchants are careful to barely stay on the right side of the line separating what constitutes copyright infringement and what is different enough to avoid legal action.

“Their feeling ... is that it can cannibalise their market,” says Rimawi. “But we would completely disagree, because what would cannibalise their market is a pirated movie of their movie.

“We’ve all settled in an area where we’re not too egregious. It’s clearly a different movie, but there’ll be some word or term that’s similar to the other ones.”

The Asylum has a catalogue of 200 films and makes about 15 a year, each with a budget of between US$500,000 (Dh1.83 million) and $2m, mostly produced in-house with directors-for-hire.

Apart from mockbusters such as Age of Tomorrow (not to be confused with Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise) and the Mad Max-inspired Road Wars, it also makes zany horror movies, of which Sharknado (killer sharks swept inland by a tornado) is probably the most famous and has become a legitimate cult hit. It has also produced a quirky zombie television show, Z-Nation, that is broadcast on the American cable channel SyFy, with a second season ordered for this year.

Other fare, driven by client demand – often Japanese – includes 3-Headed Shark Attack and Mom, Tommy Made a Dinosaur.

Films made for TV and video­on-demand (VOD) are the main outlets for this fare, although, occasionally, distributors in smaller territories, such as Romania, pick them up for a cinema release.

The recent shift away from DVD sales to VOD has fragmented the market, but there are signs of strong buyer interest from Asian countries and the Middle East.

“There’s a big VOD market in China,” says Douglas Price, chief executive and producer at D3 Telefilm, which is looking to get around Chinese quotas on foreign film imports by co-producing films with Chinese companies.

“They have to understand that you have to bring more American/European actors into the movies – they can’t just be all purely Chinese,” he says.

The Chinese co-producers demand all distribution rights in China, but that “is no big problem for me,” he says.

“They will give you the rights for around the world, which to me, I think, is a good deal.”