Unlike the old Hollywood majors, it has no studio backlot: its offices are in a dull office block in Santa Monica. It licenses out most of the international rights to its films in advance, and thus it usually has no more than $15m at stake in films that may cost several times as much to shoot. This protects it against catastrophic losses like those that sank past challengers to the Hollywood majors (such as United Artists when “Heaven’s Gate” flopped in 1980). However, it also limits Lionsgate’s upside when its films do well abroad.
Lionsgate is lean, with only 550 or so employees compared with around 10,000 at Warner Bros. That means quicker decisions, and less chance that good ideas get stuck in “development hell”. The lemming-like majors all shove their blockbusters onto the market simultaneously in the summer holidays and at Christmas; Lionsgate slips out releases at times when punters are less overwhelmed with choice. It has been bolder than its rivals at releasing films for “on-demand” home viewing at the same time as they open in the cinemas: it did so with “Margin Call” and “Arbitrage”, two tales about dodgy financiers.
