It is easier than ever to fund an indie film, but harder than ever to get people to see it

IT MIGHT seem a great time for indie cinema. The Academy Awards on February 26th will be something of a showcase for films not financed by a major studio. “Manchester by the Sea”, a contender for six Oscars, including best picture, was a darling of the Sundance Film Festival last year. Kenneth Lonergan’s masterpiece (one scene is pictured) about family and loss has earned $46m in cinemas in America and Canada, a spectacular return on its production costs of $8.5m. Amazon, which bought distribution rights, will benefit.

Movie buffs can find all manner of films online that are made more cheaply still. “The Break-In”, a horror film shot by Justin Doescher on his girlfriend’s iPhone for less than $20, has earned him more than $20,000, with more than half a million people having watched at least part of it on Amazon’s streaming-video platform.

For every success story there are thousands of indie films that go unwatched. The digital age has made it easier than ever to make a film, but also harder than ever to break through the clutter of entertainment options to an audience. Chris Moore, a producer of “Manchester by the Sea”, compares the output of indie films now to trees falling in the forest. “Nobody is making a dollar off this business”, he says.

Mr Moore may be dramatising but only a little. Indie films have always been a risky bet for investors. Since 2002 the median return on investment at the box office for films released in North America with budgets of less than $10m has been 45 cents on the dollar, which is under half the median return of films with a budget of more than $100m, according to an analysis of data collected by The Numbers, a film-industry website. There are also more flops than ever before. In 2016 almost two-thirds of the 675 films that reported box office results earned less than $1m. In 2002 only half of the total released failed to reach that figure.

One problem is that fewer people are going to cinemas. Howard Cohen of Roadside Attractions, which distributed “Manchester by the Sea”, worries about the young, smartphone-addicted generation that has grown up without the cinema-going habit. When they do flock to the cinema it is for blockbusters.

Another problem is that the DVD market has crashed. Sales and rentals of films in all physical formats in America plummeted from $25bn in 2005 to $12bn last year, according to The Numbers. Such ancillary income has in the past made a big difference in getting an indie film to break even. Consumers are using Netflix and sites like it instead, where they dispensed a total of $6.2bn in America last year.

Netflix and Amazon have injected cash into some of the best indie films, but their effect for lesser titles is likely to be mixed. Amazon allows filmmakers to upload titles directly to its platform to be discovered, as “The Break-In” was. But most minor films disappear online, since a viewer can scroll through only so many options. Even the streaming sites themselves, says Anne Thompson of IndieWire, a website, admit that “a cold start on one of their platforms can be very cold indeed”.