Good year for laffers, high-profile indies

'Nothing To Declare'While Hollywood tentpoles centered french box office once again this season, it absolutely was an excellent year for mainstream Gallic comedies, high-profile American indies and numerous arthouse sleepers hits.Gaul's top independent distributor, Pathe, acquired with Dany Boon's "Nothing to Declare," which assigned the B.O. getting a $74.5 million gross.Other high-concept local comedies, particularly "To In Which You Began" and "Service Entrance," were numerous in the year's finest-grossing Gallic photos.While Mars Distribution and Wild Bunch hit B.O. gold with "The King's Speech" and "Evening amount of time in Paris," correspondingly, the two distribs also exercised well with local photos, for instance Maiwenn's "Polisse" and Valerie Donzelli's "Commitment of War."Jean Labadie's arthouse distrib and customers shingle Le Pacte also clinched strong box office figures with two Cannes standouts: "Drive" (co-distributed with Wild Side Films) and "There exists a Pope"Box office was lower 2.2% from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 as well as the breakdown of admissions was stable when compared with 2010 with French photos repping roughly 33.4% and American photos nabbing a 51.3% business.InchEl born area office chance of indie films is bigger in comparison with other European nations due to the big volume of theaters (arthouse and multiplexes) and entrepreneurs that describes why french companies are highly competitive -- prices of films tend to escape control," states Eric Lagesse, co-topper of Distributeurs Independants Reunis Europeens, the network of independent entrepreneurs in Europe. "In France, it is not uncommon to find out a far more compact independent film handled having a large distributor play in multiplexes additionally to arthouse theaters."Meanwhile, french VOD companies are starting to warm up: Canal Plus is leaving its first subscribtion-based VOD platform, CanalPlay Infinity, while Wild Bunch's FilmoTV is enhancing its options with five new film channels and three occasions more game game titles.Distribs overall agree that VOD revenues are becoming bigger but "they still don't replace the lowering DVD sales," states Jean-Phillipe Tirel, topper of untamed Bunch Distribution.If this involves TV deals, feature debuts and indie photos with no cast are very hard to sell to many free-to-air channels, apart from Franco-German internet Arte, states Lagesse. Even paybox Canal Plus, a sizable backer of French cinema, has become more selective within the last three years. Nevertheless the approaching arrival of Canal Plus round the free DTT landscape with two channels -- Direct 8 and Direct Star -- could energize the tv market and convey more deals oppotunities to indie producers and distribtuors, states Francois Godard at Enders Analysis.Volume of screens: 5,465Number of 3d screens: 2,212Top indie distribs and box office*: Pathe ($124.4 million) Mars ($77.2 million) Metropolitan Filmexport ($55.5 million) Wild Bunch ($52.5 million) SND ($47.5 million)Top exhibition chains for indie films: MK2, UGC Cine Cite, Gaumont, Pathe, MK2, KinepolisTypical minimum guarantee paid out: $567,000 averageTypical theatrical gross split: 50-50 as well as the exhibitors' share evolves each week. Sometimes sometimes it can go around 70%.Top indie films: "Nothing to Declare" ($74.5 million) "The King's Speech" ($26.8 million) "Service Entrance" ($19.3 million) "To In Which You Began" ($16 million) "Evening amount of time in Paris" ($14.5 million)Approaching indie pick-ups: "Sinister" (Wild Bunch) "Stone" (Metropolitan Filmexport) "Nero Fiddled" (Mars Distribution) "Seeking Justice" (SND)*Through March. 21, 2011 Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com