{"id":1176342,"date":"2024-10-04T09:33:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T16:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/?p=1176342"},"modified":"2024-10-04T09:50:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T16:50:00","slug":"pressman-film-crowdfunding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/pressman-film-crowdfunding\/","title":{"rendered":"Pressman Film \u2014 Company Behind American Psycho, Wall Street and The Crow \u2014 Turns to Crowdfunding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed Pressman was one of Hollywood’s most impressive producers \u2014 a man who worked on films from American Psycho<\/em> to The Crow<\/em> to Wall Street<\/em> to cult classics like The Phantom of the Paradise<\/em> and Bad Lieutenant<\/em>. His son Sam Pressman took over Pressman Films when his father died last year at 79, with bold ideas about how to keep making daring films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those ideas is turning from the old-school financing methods of his father to a favorite practice of scrappy DIY filmmakers, crowdfunding. But why is a business known for making classics the old-fashioned way turning to online investors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me it feels like a moment of great opportunity for independent film — with fewer films being produced by the studios and streamers it\u2019s incumbent upon independent producers to help fill that void,\u201d Pressman says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no secret that Hollywood, emerging from Covid and strikes, is unusually skittish lately about greenlighting new projects. Pressman sees crowdfunding as a way to break through the delays, and as an expansion of traditional approaches with which his father succeeded. He notes that Ed Pressman \u201cwas always looking for new and innovative ways to finance independent films.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve raised money in a variety of different ways over the years, but this is the first time through a public offering,\u201d Pressman tells us. \u201cOur raise is motivated less by a need to raise the money, and more by a desire to pioneer new ways to capitalize independent film. We have a lot of traditional investors, but this is an opportunity for us to connect with a wider fan community with an interest in participating in financial upside from movie making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can listen to our full interview with Sam Pressman on Simplecast<\/a>, Apple<\/a> or Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the Pressman Film Fundraising Works<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using the Republic platform<\/a>, Pressman Films seeks to raise $1.5 million to help develop six films \u2014 three based on existing intellectual property, and three based on new ideas. The minimum investment is $200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While a few very smart and\/or lucky investors get rich backing movies, Hollywood productions are infamous for a lack of transparency, and for losing investors\u2019 money. As author Sam Wasson recently noted in the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, \u201cIn terms of making fortunes, Wall Street laughs at Hollywood.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Pressman can\u2019t guarantee investors will see a profit \u2014 because no one can \u2014 but his company is attempting to increase transparency. In its fundraising pitch, Pressman Films pledges that investors will receive payouts at three crucial points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company says when a film goes into production, investors will recoup the portion of their investment tied to the film, plus a 20% premium. And when the film completes filming, they will receive 15% of Pressman Film\u2019s producer fee and 15% of any rights fee, the company says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investors will also get 100% of Pressman’s net profit share in all films from the slate until investors have made their money back, plus 8% compounded interest, according to the company. In other words, Pressman only takes money back after investors are paid back their investment and return. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce you get that money back, you will start getting 25% of Pressman’s net profits for these films in perpetuity,\u201d the company\u2019s fundraising site says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investor-Advocates<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But Pressman hopes participants will not just be passive investors, but active advocates for their films, helping raise attention and excitement for them online. So that Redditor or TikToker you see hyping a Pressman film may also have a financial stake in its success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me it feels like a moment of great opportunity for independent film — with fewer films being produced by the studios and streamers it\u2019s incumbent upon independent producers to help fill that void,\u201d Pressman says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressman Films isn\u2019t the first film business to invite fans to invest in films \u2014 LegionM, the company behind the Nicholas Cage film Mandy<\/em>, is based on a participatory model.<\/a> Pressman Films has a longer track record of making movies, while LegionM has been in the crowdfunding game longer. It was founded in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our podcast talk with Sam Pressman, we cover a wide range of topics, including what it was like to grow up on films sets. He has especially strong memories of 1996\u2019s The Island of Dr. Moreau, which filmed in Australia when he was about 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it was the most stressful, worst experience that my father had in producing,\u201d Pressman recalls. \u201cIt was the only time he fired his director. It’s the only time he was banned from the set \u2014 by Marlon Brando.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also shares memories of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Danny DeVito\u2019s City Hall<\/em>, and tells us his parents wouldn\u2019t let him near the set of American Psycho<\/em>: \u201cMy mom wouldn’t even let me see the film when it came out,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ed Pressman had hits and misses, but Sam Pressman said his father never let box-office failures stop him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomehow, he just kind of persisted,\u201d Sam Pressman says on the podcast. \u201cHe didn’t get too high, he didn’t get too low. \u2026 He was shy and reserved. There was a sweetness to his spirit that wouldn’t get beaten down even when things didn’t go his way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd maybe that was because there were always so many projects percolating and being juggled in his head \u2014 when something wasn’t working exactly how he wanted, there was the next thing to keep pushing forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons From <\/strong>The Crow<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We also talked about a more recent box-office disappointment, this past summer\u2019s new version of The Crow<\/em>. The film was in development for years, and Ed Pressman, one of the producers, died the year before its release. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Pressman says he\u2019s a better producer because of the painful experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI learned so much from the process of The Crow<\/em> and my father was really, really, genuinely happy to see the movie finally finding its form. He was first sick and in the hospital right as we started principal production in Prague. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think losing my father during the journey was was the most intense experience, and fills the film with this emotion of loss that is kind of built into the story and the soul of the film, which has so much to do with with loss, going back to the graphic novel from James O\u2019Barr.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Crow<\/em> made him more determined to be hands-on in the future, he said \u2014 and a new fundraising model will help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think in ways, you know, we were not driving the creative process because of the nature of the development deal, and I want to be able to have our team kind of more firmly in the trenches with the filmmaker throughout the development process. And that’s part of why this raise is so important. Because I really look at the films my father made as the treasure and as the great gift he leaves us as a company, and also culturally, I think the films have had great significance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo how do we preserve those? How do we nurture the next iterations of those films so that they really honor what came before and and have a meaning and a reason for existing in a new form?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main image: Sam Pressman, courtesy of Pressman Film.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Pressman was one of Hollywood’s most impressive producers \u2014 a man who worked on films from American Psycho to […]","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":1176348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"disable_comments":false,"tpd_featured_posts_arr":"","hide_featured_img_single_post":false,"msn_featured_video":[],"_msn_custom_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41543,11,16611],"tags":[],"feeds":[],"class_list":["post-1176342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-news","category-podcasts"],"primary_category":{"term_id":41543,"name":"Interview","slug":"interview","taxonomy":"category","url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/category\/interview\/"},"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=428,height=285,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/SamPressman.jpg","fimg_url_thumb":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=428,height=285,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/SamPressman.jpg","featured_img_medium":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=666,height=444,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/SamPressman.jpg","author_name":"Tim Molloy","author_avatar":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=100,height=100,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IMG_1078.jpg","author_link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/author\/tim-molloy\/","post_categories":["Interview"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Pressman Film \u2014 Company Behind American Psycho, Wall Street and The Crow \u2014 Turns to Crowdfunding","url":"http:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/pressman-film-crowdfunding\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/pressman-film-crowdfunding\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=428,height=285,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/SamPressman.jpg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=8192,height=5464,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/SamPressman.jpg"},"articleSection":"Interview","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tim Molloy"}],"creator":["Tim Molloy"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"MovieMaker Magazine","logo":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/mm_site_logo-2.svg"},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2024-10-04T16:33:45Z","datePublished":"2024-10-04T16:33:45Z","dateModified":"2024-10-04T16:50:00Z"},"rendered":"