Assignment Task:
THE BEATLES MOVIE Role for Walter Shenson The time is October 1963. You are Walter Shenson, a movie producer with United Artists (UA) European unit. You are interested in producing a low-budget movie based on a day in the life of a British pop band. Low-budget movies featuring pop musicians (for example, The Tommy Steele Story in 1957) have recently worked well in Britain. In part, they take advantage of the disposable income of the teenage market. UA is looking to replicate this model, and you have a budget of $300,000 to make the movie. The band of interest to you is a group called the Beatles. This group has been playing in obscurity for over five years in its hometown of Liverpool. However, there are some indications that the Beatles may turn out to be bigger than anyone has imagined. Although they labored mostly in obscurity until 1963, they have had over a dozen 1963 television appearances and now have their own BBC radio program. They have had three singles ("Please Please Me", "From Me to You", and "She Loves You") and one album go to the top of the UK charts in 1963. Although the pop music media has noticed the Beatles, the broader news media has hardly taken notice. Therefore, you believe that the Beatles may be interested in the publicity that a movie would provide for them. You recently approached Brian James, manager of the Beatles, to discuss the possible movie. His experience has been in the retail side of music, not the movie business, but he seemed agreeable to the idea. The Beatles were initially reluctant, viewing themselves as musicians, not actors. However, they finally agreed that the publicity of the movie would be good for the group. You met with James to begin negotiating terms of the agreement. You agreed to pay the Beatles $25,000 plus a percentage of the movie's profits. The Beatles will writte and record six new songs for the soundtrack. The filming, all in London, will take about two months in early 1964. You agreed that the Beatles would have input to the choice of director and the script for the movie. All that remains is to negotiate the percentage of the movie's profits that will go to the Beatles (in addition to the $25,000 advance). This is clearly a low-budget movie. With more traditional movies, the norm would be for the Beatles to receive 5%. However, with lowbudget movies, the norm is much higher and you think it could take 25% to entice the stillreluctant Beatles to do the movie. An advance of $25,000 is small by industry standards. In low-budget movies, it is the norm to have a small advance (because the available capital is limited) and offer the actors more than 5% of the movie's profits. United Artists has agreed that, if necessary, you may offer the Beatles up to 25% of the profits. Obviously, a deal of less than 25% would make you look good to United Artists. They have instructed you not to agree to more than 25%