Birth of a Salesman

by Mike Goodridge, Screen International

Two years into his new sales business, former co-chief of Miramax acquisitions Andrew Herwitz explains his modus operandi and how he became involved in the international rollout of Fahrenheit 9/11.

When Harvey and Bob Weinstein personally bought worldwide rights to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 from The Walt Disney Co in June this year, Harvey decided that he wanted to hire a US sales executive to help him and his newly formed Fellowship Adventure Group to work with Paris-based sales agent Wild Bunch in closing remaining international deals and supervising the global release.

Perhaps it was no surprise that he turned to Andrew Herwitz to do the job. Herwitz was a Miramax Films employee for six years, leaving his post of co-head of the acquisitions department to form his own sales consultancy The Film Sales Company in 2002. “After Cannes , it became clear that a lot of distributors were going to be looking for more support from Harvey ,” explains the New York-based Herwitz. “Wild Bunch had identified great distributors for the film and did great deals at the outset, but after Cannes , the situation became more complicated.”

It wasn't just that the film had won the Palme d'Or in May. The fact that Moore and Weinstein were determined to have the film in domestic theatres by late June combined with the blitzkrieg of publicity generated out of Cannes and signs that this documentary was going to be a box office event were causing the film's international buyers to rethink their own distribution plans. “Suddenly every territory in the world was going to release it over the course of two months with a tiny infrastructure in place over here to support them,” Herwitz says.

With at eam composed of just Artisan executive Patrick Gunn, a delivery supervisor and Herwitz, Weinstein set about engineering the global launch of the picture. “I was brought on to finish negotiations on deals, approve P&A budgets and make sure delivery went smoothly,” says Herwitz. “I knew a lot of the distributors to which Wild Bunch had sold the film and I could call upon these relationships to help expedite the process. Everyone was clamouring for the film.”
Fahrenheit 9/11 is another feather in the cap for the two year-old The Film Sales Company whose name Herwitz has slowly been building by representing select arthouse titles such as My Architect and Kontroll.

“Acquisitions isn't a growth area,” says Herwitz, who had been an in-house lawyer and in the business affairs department at Miramax before becoming co-head of the acquisitions team. “It was not what I wanted to do for my career. I had had the most challenging experiences at Miramax but decided that sitting on the other side of the table from where I'd been was the best place to be.”

Concluding that his experience in both closing a deal and in distribution made sales the logical next step, he left Miramax, amicably, to set up his own shop and quickly concluded that he would embrace international sales as well as domestic. “For a type A personality like me, doing foreign sales is a great relief,” he laughs. “When you're selling foreign, you can turn to different countries whereas the US can often come to a standstill while people are evaluating whether they want it.”

He admits it's been a steep learning curve, not to mention the challenge of finding films at an early stage which don't already have sales agents attached. But among his various deals include the sale of Italian dwarf taxidermist movie The Embalmer to First Run Features in the US, a pre-sale of Nathaniel Kahn's documentary My Architect to the BBC in the UK followed by a theatrical deal with Tartan, the sale of CSA The Confederate States Of America at Sundance to IFC Films in the US, Tartan in the UK and ABL Augusto in Spain and Erika Christensen-starrer Home Room to Blockbuster in the US and Myriad in international territories. “It makes sense to handle worldwide rights,” he explains. “I learned the delivery process pretty well at Miramax which has been useful to know. In order to do anything in distribution, you have to learn how to do everything.”