By Max Van Kleek
Artisan Entertainment has established itself as more than just an
independent film company over the past two years, thanks to their
phenomenal success with The Blair Witch Project and PI. These films
first proved that Artisan was unique; although the films were shot
as most indie films are, they quickly escaped from indie theatres
to the mainstream big screens. The Blair Witch Project reached $140
million at the US box office, becoming "arguably the most profitable
film in history."
Aside from their success, Artisan claims to have made a few milestones
in filmmaking, including making the first mixed-media movie and website,
for the Blair Witch Project. Since Blair Witch, all Artisan films
have been augmented with elaborate accompanying web sites or Shockwave
Flash pieces that added an element of nonlinear storytelling to their
films. One of the most artistic was a piece done for Darren Aronofsky's
second film with Artisan, Requiem for a Dream, which was released
in late 2000. Artisan Pictures has also been a major adopter of digital
video, much like Sony Pictures, (which used digital video for Run
Lola Run and Timecode).
While Artisan remains a small company, consisting of only 20 marketing
personnel, it makes grand plans for the future. The artisanent web
site claims that the company aims on releasing 20 films a year, either
produced in-house or acquired externally. They have not yet met this
ambitious goal, but have begun to aggressively purchase pictures from
other a wide variety of film libraries and archives. It has acquired
films from Baby Einstein series and Alice and Wonderland to Terminator
2 and Total Recall, in an effort to strengthen the Home Entertainment
branch of Artisan.