Summer at the multiplex: It's so indie (AD)

By Nancy Tartaglione

AdAge wonders what's behind a seeming resurgence of the high-end indie market this summer. Despite the franchises and tentpoles that are starting to roll out, the summer release schedule appears to have an oddly high number of smaller, original films which would normally seem more at home in the high-art winter months.

In part, says AdAge, the raft of indies coming out is a result of a pretty strong festival season earlier in the year. A number of the films like "Get Low," "Cyrus" and "The Kids Are Alright" debuted at Sundance and other festivals.

While counter-programming is one reason behind the thrust, part of it might also be because the studios doing the releasing see the opportunity to actually make money by presenting - from an artistic point of view - a quality product to the audience.

It also could be that this summer is, not withstanding "Iron Man 2," "Toy Story 3" in a few weeks and "Twilight: Eclipse," looking a tad anemic. AdAge opines that if you were to ask a serious movie fan what they were looking forward to on the mid-year release schedule, only a couple movies would make their lists until the August debut of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World."

Right now, "Iron Man 2" is still the No. 2 movie in the US, something that shouldn't really be happening after three weeks and at this point in the season.

Says AdAge, there appear to be opportunities for a smaller movie, even one in limited release, to make a relatively big splash on the box office charts. Whatever the root cause of this mini-resurgence, AdAge contends that it means there's life remaining in the high-end prestige film market.