Franchise Pictures

Franchise Pictures LLC was an independent motion picture production and distribution company, founded by Elie Samaha and Andrew Stevens. They were known for their production in the action film genre. The company also had a short-lived video game arm, Franchise Interactive.

Franchise Pictures LLC

Industry	Independent film studio
Fate	Bankruptcy
Founded	1998
Defunct	2007
Key people	Elie Samaha Andrew Stevens
Subsidiaries	Franchise Interactive Phoenician Entertainment[1] Franchise Pictures Classics[2]

As of 2009, half of the Franchise Pictures library, along with that of ThinkFilm, is now owned by Orange Holdings LLC.[3] Another half of the Franchise Pictures library is owned by Revolution Studios (via Morgan Creek Productions).[4][5]

Filmography

Release Date	Title	Director	Budget	Gross (worldwide)	RT Approval Rating
July 6, 1999	A Murder of Crows	Rowdy Herrington	N/A	N/A	0%
September 10, 1999	Storm Catcher	Anthony Hickox	N/A	N/A	23%
December 29, 1999	The Third Miracle	Agnieszka Holland	N/A	$591,142	67%
January 21, 2000	The Boondock Saints	Troy Duffy	$6 million	$30,471	20%
February 11, 2000	Mercy	Damian Harris	N/A	N/A	17%
February 18, 2000	The Whole Nine Yards	Jonathan Lynn	$41.3 million	$106,371,651	45%
April 28, 2000	The Big Kahuna	John Swanbeck	$7 million	$3,728,888	74%
May 12, 2000	Battlefield Earth	Roger Christian	$44 million	$29,725,663	3%
July 4, 2000	Jill Rips	Anthony Hickox	N/A	N/A	11%
August 25, 2000	The Art of War	Christian Duguay	$60 million	$40,400,425	16%
September 14, 2000	Auggie Rose	Matthew Tabak	N/A	N/A	54%
October 6, 2000	Get Carter	Stephen Kay	$63.6 million	$19,412,993	12%
October 13, 2000	Animal Factory	Steve Buscemi	N/A	$43,805	82%
January 19, 2001	The Pledge	Sean Penn	$35 million	$29,419,291	78%
February 23, 2001	3000 Miles to Graceland	Demian Lichtenstein	$62 million	$18,720,175	14%
March 2, 2001	The Caveman's Valentine	Kasi Lemmons	$13.5 million	$687,194	46%
March 11, 2001	Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her	Rodrigo García	N/A	N/A	74%
April 10, 2001	Agent Red	Damian Lee	N/A	N/A	26%
April 27, 2001	Driven	Renny Harlin	$72 million	$54,744,738	14%
May 18, 2001	Angel Eyes	Luis Mandoki	$53 million	$29,715,606	33%
June 15, 2001	Viva Las Nowhere	Jason Bloom	N/A	N/A	50%
November 9, 2001	Heist	David Mamet	$39 million	$28,510,652	65%
May 1, 2002	Green Dragon	Timothy Linh Bui	N/A	N/A	61%
July 9, 2002	Zig Zag	David S. Goyer	N/A	$2,418	44%
August 30, 2002	FeardotCom	William Malone	$40 million	$18,902,015	3%
August 30, 2002	Avenging Angelo	Martyn Burke	$17 million	$824,597	13%
September 3, 2002	If... Dog... Rabbit...	Matthew Modine	N/A	N/A	20%
September 6, 2002	City by the Sea	Michael Caton-Jones	$40 million	$29,413,996	48%
September 20, 2002	Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever	Wych Kaosayananda	$70 million	$19,924,033	0%
November 15, 2002	Half Past Dead	Don Michael Paul	$13 million	$19,233,280	2%
January 28, 2003	The Foreigner	Michael Oblowitz	$16.7 million	N/A	0%
May 23, 2003	The In-Laws	Andrew Fleming	$40 million	$26,891,849	34%
June 20, 2003	Alex & Emma	Rob Reiner	$30 million	$15,368,897	11%
October 21, 2003	Final Examination	Ed Raymond	N/A	N/A	5%
March 12, 2004	Spartan	David Mamet	$23 million	$8,112,712	64%
April 9, 2004	The Whole Ten Yards	Howard Deutch	$40 million	$26,155,741	4%
July 20, 2004	Out of Reach	Steven Seagal	$20 million	N/A	21%
September 17, 2004	Funky Monkey	Harry Basil	$30 million	N/A	47%
January 14, 2005	Retrograde	Christopher Kulikowski	N/A	N/A	9%
February 15, 2005	Into the Sun	Christopher Morrison	N/A	$175,563	27%
September 2, 2005	A Sound of Thunder	Peter Hyams	$80 million	$11,665,465	6%
January 13, 2006	Tristan & Isolde	Kevin Reynolds	N/A	$28,047,963	32%
May 18, 2007	The Wendell Baker Story	Andrew & Luke Wilson	$8 million	$153,169	40%

Reception

Franchise Pictures is mostly known for its reputation on several films that received mostly negative reviews. Both Battlefield Earth and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever are considered to be two of the worst films of all time. However a few of their films (The Boondock Saints, Heist and The Whole Nine Yards for example) have garnered a strong cult following.

Bankruptcy

Following the financial failure of Battlefield Earth and other films independently produced by Franchise Pictures, The Wall Street Journal reported that the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation was probing "the question of whether some independent motion picture companies have vastly inflated the budget of films in an effort to scam investors".[6] In December 2000 the German-based Intertainment AG filed a lawsuit alleging that Franchise Pictures had fraudulently inflated budgets in films including Battlefield Earth, which Intertainment had helped to finance.[7] Intertainment had agreed to pay 47% of the production costs of several films in exchange for European distribution rights, but ended up paying for between 60% and 90% of the costs instead. The company alleged that Franchise had defrauded it to the tune of over $75 million by systematically submitting "grossly fraudulent and inflated budgets".[8]

The case was heard before a jury in a Los Angeles federal courtroom in May–June 2004. The court heard testimony from Intertainment that according to Franchise's bank records the real cost of Battlefield Earth was only $44 million, not the $75 million declared by Franchise. The remaining $31 million had been fraudulent "padding". Intertainment's head Barry Baeres told the court that he had only funded Battlefield Earth because it was packaged as a slate that included two more commercially attractive films, the Wesley Snipes vehicle The Art of War and the Bruce Willis comedy The Whole Nine Yards. Baeres testified that "Mr. Samaha said, 'If you want the other two pictures, you have to take Battlefield Earth—it's called packaging'". Baeres commented: "We would have been quite happy if he had killed Battlefield Earth".[9]

Intertainment won the case and was awarded $121.7 million in damages, of which Samaha himself was declared by the court to be personally liable for $77 million in damages.[10] However, the jury rejected Intertainment's claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, which would have trebled the damages if Franchise had been found liable on that charge.[11] Samaha vowed to appeal but the fraud judgment destroyed Franchise's viability; the company and its subsidiaries all filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions on August 19, 2007.[12]

References

1. "Franchise". Hausegenealogy.com. Retrieved 2017-08-21.
2. "Franchise". Hausegenealogy.com. Retrieved 2017-08-21.
3. "WebVoyage Record View 1". Cocatalog.loc.gov. 2016-06-06. Retrieved 2017-08-21.
4. http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0221051
5. https://morgancreek.com/films/
6. Staff (2002-06-06). "FBI Probes Big Indie Budgets". StudioBriefing: Internet Movie Database. Archived from the original on 2008-12-16. Retrieved 2008-01-20.
7. Randall, Laura (2000-12-22). "Franchise, Intertainment duel; Countersuits ask $75 million-plus each in film licensing dispute". The Hollywood Reporter.
8. Staff (2001-01-19). "$75M Battlefield Over Film Flops". New York Post.
9. Hiestand, Jesse (2007-05-10). "Baeres: No secret budget deal". The Hollywood Reporter.
10. Shprintz, Janet (2007-06-21). "Attempt to Collect". Variety.
11. Shprintz, Janet (2007-06-17). "Samaha Slammed". Variety.
12. Shprintz, Janet; Dana Harris (August 23, 2007). "Elie's new chapter: Samaha's Franchise files for bankruptcy". Variety. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012. Retrieved 2010-07-01.

External links

• Franchise Pictures at IMDb