Major film studios sign deal to keep Kodak rolling on

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/05/film-studios-kodak-deal

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Kodak, whose film stock was the foundation for decades of Hollywood, have seen their profits plummet by 96% over the last decade as digital film-making and exhibition have become standard. But buoyed by the efforts of some high profile directors, the company has now had its future secured.

The major film studios – Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, NBC Universal and Warner Bros – have all made agreements to keep buying a certain level of film from Kodak in the coming years. Exact amounts and timeframes have not been disclosed. The company is now seeking to secure similar agreements with independent studios, and with TV companies.

The studios were beginning to phase out the format, with Paramount announcing in January last year that Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues would be the last movie it printed on 35mm film (minus very occasional exceptions). In 2013, Fujifilm quit the film production business, leaving Kodak as the last man standing; last summer Kodak then ceased manufacturing its own cellulose acetate, the base material for making film. The vast majority of cinemas have now invested in digital projection equipment, further reducing the necessity for studios to use film.

But various directors, chief among them Christopher Nolan, continue to champion film, and have helped secure its future. Nolan has said that as well as saving money in post-production, “film has tremendous balls. That’s just all there is to it. Film is oak, digital is plywood... [film can] reproduce colour the way the eye sees it.” He told the Hollywood Reporter last year that “the point at which you’re told you won’t have a choice anymore, that becomes an important creative issue that needs to be brought to people’s attention.”

He, along with the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow and JJ Abrams (who shot the new Star Wars episode on film), managed to begin brokering a deal between the studios and Kodak in 2014, which has now finally been signed off. Abrams has said of the format: “It’s not just an idea that would be nice to keep going – it’s an aesthetically and materially important thing.”

“We are not walking away,” Kodak president Andrew Evenski told the Hollywood Reporter when announcing the finalised deal. “I want people to get excited around film again.”