Walden Looks for Lion's Share
Anschutz-backed shingle jumps into blockbuster pond with "Narnia"December 11, 2005
By CHRIS GARDNER
Variety
Consider this: Given a hard choice between "making a couple of million bucks at the box office in profits" or inspiring and educating ticket buyers, Walden Media would choose the latter.
Of course, Walden can afford to be magnanimous. Advance sales last week for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" were outpacing "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and "King Kong," thanks in part to the 36,000 tickets sold for church group pre-opening screenings.
The big question as "Narnia" steamrolled its way into 3,616 U.S. theaters wasn't whether it would make money, but how much.
But Walden's inspirational agenda is in line with the philosophy of its owner, 66 year-old Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz. "I had been complaining about movies and their content for years," Anschutz said in a speech last year at Hillsdale College in Missouri. "Four or five years ago I decided to stop cursing the darkness," Anschutz said, "and instead to do something about it by getting into the film business."
Looking ahead, Walden is finally, after a shaky start, beginning to make good on that plan.
Walden's business strategy was hatched five years ago by Cary Granat and Micheal Flaherty. It's a strategy that's built on a tightly coordinated grassroots marketing effort, involving partnerships with religious groups, schools and publishing houses, and it benefits—though not always in tangible ways -- from Anschutz's considerable clout.
Granat and Flaherty, who met in the 1980s as roommates at Tufts U., came up with the idea for Walden when they were working in separate industries: Granat as production chief at Dimension Films, Flaherty as an entrepreneur involved in after-school and motivational programs for kids.
"Micheal and I started brainstorming about something we could do together," Granat says. "I said, 'Let's combine everything you've done with what I've done in entertainment.'"
The company didn't really take shape until they met Anschutz. "We took our business plan and our mission statement, and he gave us the wherewithal to elevate that mission statement because he had a similar one," Granat adds.
Thanks to Anschutz, whose Regal Cinemas controls more than 6,000 theater screens, Walden has instant name recognition with exhibs across the country.
Whether that translates to preferential screen treatment and trailer placement is another question. Two distribution execs said they've never detected favorable terms for Walden pics, but one noted the films Walden produces are especially well suited for the areas where Regal has most of its theaters.
"Regal is strong in so many markets where 'Narnia' is a home run, rather than, say, a Loews, which is strongest in the urban markets," the exec said.
There's even speculation in Hollywood that Walden could one day release its movies directly to Regal theaters, sidestepping the studios altogether.
A Walden spokesman quickly dismissed that talk. "There are no such plans," he said, "for several reasons, including the fact that Regal is a publicly held company and Walden is committed to working with a wide range of distributors and exhibitors."
But the impending success of "Narnia" certainly reflects the benefits of the studio marketing machine.
Thanks to Anschutz's growing media empire (Regal Cinemas, the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington Examiner and Qwest Communications), studios and filmmakers have a powerful incentive to get involved with Walden. And Anschutz is passionate about many of their projects. He even traveled to New York to close the deal for the rights to "Narnia" with the C.S. Lewis Co.
But Anschutz keeps his distance from Hollywood, preferring to let his lieutenants manage the slate and marketing efforts.
"Between 'Narnia' and (the upcoming) 'Charlotte's Web,' it's the culmination of a five-year startup plan to build a very ambitious slate in a short period of time and to establish a family brand with real meaning out there and real trust," Granat says.
Relying on feedback from librarians, teachers and booksellers, Walden now has a series of prominent literary properties in the pipeline, including "Charlotte's Web," starring Dakota Fanning and a celeb-studded roster of voice talent, due from Paramount in 2006.
Also forthcoming are "Hoot," adapted from the Carl Hiassen young-adult novel, and "How to Eat Fried Worms," based on Thomas Rockwell's well-known kids book, both due out via New Line next year.
Many of these books are required reading in schools across the country, giving the pics a huge built-in name recognition factor.
"Holes," for example, grossed more than $67 million in the U.S., without big names or big opening buzz—but it's one of the most popular books regularly assigned in grade schools.
Walden execs express enthusiasm for a franchise they are developing called "Journey 3-D," a 3-D take on "Journey to the Center of the World." The first installment of that franchise is due before cameras in April for New Line. Walden also just signed Academy Award-nominated helmer Vadim Perelman to direct a Fox project titled "The Giver," based on a young-adult sci-fi novel.
When Variety arrived at Walden's BevHills office, Spike Jonze was on his way out. Was he there to discuss his adaptation of "Where the Wild Things Are," recently put into turnaround by Universal? Neither Granat nor David Weil, CEO of Walden parent company the Anschutz Film Group, would say, but one thing is clear: The company is getting a whole lot hipper than it was in its early days, when it was associated with a mix of kidpix, Jim Cameron's Imax doc "Aliens of the Deep" and costly missteps "Around the World in 80 Days" and "Sahara."
Walden execs are keener to talk about Walden's Boston arm, which is run by Flaherty and focuses solely on educational outreach, than the latest script in development.
Those programs give them a direct line to millions of kids across the country to whom to market their pics. And they set Walden apart from the Hollywood pack. With its roots in Denver and Boston, its a company that's outside the usual media nexis, with the resources to cultivate widespread, grassroots support of its projects.
Walden is in discussions to create its own publishing company in partnership with Penguin.
And the company already has branched out into publishing a bit by creating and distributing educational materials and programs for several of its films, including "Narnia."
For example, "Narnia" opens with a massive bombing sequence in WWII London, after which thousands of children are evacuated. Walden has worked with teachers to create programs about modern-day evacuations, which Granat said comes at a beneficial time considering recent disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami.
"We want to succeed commercially," says Weil. "But really, equally as important is that we want to succeed with the mission of the company, which in the educational realm is improving literacy and getting kids to read, and also getting readers to go to the movies."
