Institutional Research: Institutions

Warner Bros

Warner Bros, stated to be ' The Media Film Giants' have produced some of the world's most famous horror films. Within our psychological horror genre, they have produced The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, Haunted House on the Hill and The Shining. They own roughly 15% of the market, owning smaller companies such as 'Time Warner' through vertical integration. Warner Bros spend very large budgets to produce their films. The Exorcist cost approximately £12 million to make. Most marketing campaigns they use are online, using websites such as You Tube as Warner Bros realise the audience they can reach by using an online platform. Warner Bros own  smaller companies such as Time Warner, whom decide the overall marketing campaign for their films.

New Line Cinema

 

New Line Cinema are famous for horrors such as Nightmare on Elm Street, The Conjuring, Texas Chainsaw massacre and Annabelle. Owned by Time Warner, (Warner Bros daughter company) they don't have an independent market share, however all of their marketing is paid for and distributed by Time Warner. Being owned by Warner bros allows New Line Cinema to produce high budget horrors; for example The Conjuring was produced with a $20 million budget, allowing them to spend more money on marketing than if they were independent. With the expertise of Time Warner, they could reach a mass audience using the most recent technology and platforms.

Lionsgate

 

Lionsgate horror films include Jessabelle, American Psycho, Saw and Hostel. Lionsgate owns 7% of the film production market share, meaning they can spend bigger budgets on producing films to saturate the cinemas with Lionsgate films. The making of Saw cost $1.2 million, and their synergy with 'Summit' Marketing Company gave the film extra money and expertise to expand their marketing campaign. Official trailers were put onto You Tube well in advance of the release dates and print based media was also used to generate awareness.  

Blumhouse Productions

 

Horror films produced include Paranormal Activity, Oculus, insidious and The Purge. Although the brand isn't as popular as Warner Bros, all of these films have earned high revenue at the box office. With a $15000 budget, the film has currently made $193 000 000 at the box office and that isn't including Paranormal Activity 2 or 3; proving budget doesn't determine success. As for marketing, the film was originally set to be produced by Blumhouse productions alone, however viral marketing introduced the footage to Dreamworks (owned by Paramount), who decided to co-market the film, and pay for above the line marketing campaigns. The amateur nature of the film made social media spiral, giving Paranormal Activity another marketing platform, accessible to anyone.

Dark Castle Entertainment

Dark Castle Entertainment is renowned for producing popular horror films such as Orphan, House Of Wax and The Reaping. As well as this institution being a division of Silver Pictures, it is also affiliated with Warner Bros. Popular blockbusters such as Orphan and House Of Wax have earned a high revenue at the box office as well as a high total gross. Orphan for example, grossed a total of $78,337,373 from foreign and domestic box office sales whilst making a presume profit (budget not available) as the total earnings for this film was $90,587,816. Similarly, House Of Wax had a budget of $40 million and made a total of $62,771,059 just from domestic and foreign box office sales. So it readily exceeded it's budget and therefore made a profit without even including the total grossed on DVD sales. Dark Castle Entertainment certainly put forward it's competitive nature when it came to the purchase of the more recent 2009 film Splice. This film was premiered at the Sitges Film Festival in October 2009 where it received an award for best special effects. It also demonstrates below the line marketing to make this film more successful when it was part of the Sundance Film Festival to help market this film to a wider audience. There was a bidding war when it came to this film as big institutions such as The Weinstein Company, Apparition and Newmarket Films all wanted to purchase this film. However, Dark Castle Entertainment was the only successful institute and successfully marketed this film by allowing it to have a wide release in the US with Warner Bros as a distributer as well as attaching it to the well known film A Nightmare On Elm Street.

Ghost House Pictures

Established in 2002, Ghost House Pictures was founded by Sam Raimi who was also the founder of Renaissance Pictures and Robert Tapert, who both had the aim of producing high-concept horror films. From a distributing point of view, Ghost house pictures are closely linked to Mandate Pictures who help them to produce and distribute their films. Ghost House Pictures are renowned for producing the popular horror films The Possession and The Grudge; both high grossing films. The Possession was distributed by Lionsgate and had an estimated budget of $14,000,000. In the opening weekend of the films release in August 2012 it earned a total of $17,732,4480 in the USA whilst making a total gross of $49,122,319; making itself a considerable profit from its budget. There is no doubt that Ghost House Pictures synergy with Lionsgate was to thank for the huge success of the film. As previously mentioned, Lionsgate owns 7% of the production market share which not only means that they have the availability of a large budget in order to market films to a mass audience on a variety of platforms.

Platinum Dunes



The American production company Platinum Dunes was created by Michael Bay and Brad Fuller in 2001 with the company specializing in horror films, and more specifically the remake of horror films. Platinum Dunes has produced classic horror films such as A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Both Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th had relatively low budgets of $9,500,00 and $19,000,000, yet they were still both high total grossing films as they both made approximately $100,000,00 each. This is therefore an indicator that the marketing campaigns of these films must have been extremely effective in order for the films to reach a mass audience and generate such a large amount of money.
Friday the 13th was expected to make $120 million from the box office, however despite having a great marketing campaign, the film had extremely bad word of mouth which lead to a depletion in the number of people wanting to view the film. This was perhaps due to the fact that this film was a remake which is what Platinum Dunes are renowned for, however their remakes also have a reputation of not always being the most successful films.