I talked to longtime director/producer Mike Tollin after he finished filming “The Bleeder,” a movie about boxer Chuck Wepner, who fought Muhammad Ali in 1975 and inspired Sylvester Stallone’s character Rocky Balboa.
The film’s cast has several well-known actors in Liev Schreiber (“Spotlight”), Naomi Watts (“Birdman”), Jim Gaffigan (“The Jim Gaffigan Show”) and Michael Rapaport (“Prison Break”). Tollin’s company is planning to release the film in the fall.
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Mike Tollin’s new film is based on ex-boxer Chuck Wepner (above).
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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I asked Tollin why we don’t see many sports movies these days. His answer boiled down to dollars and cents.
“The economics have changed,” said Tollin, co-chairman of Mandalay Sports Media. “Our first sports movie was ‘Varsity Blues,’ which came out in January 1999. Back then, the theatrical market made roughly 75 percent of its box office from domestic and 25 percent from international. Now, it’s flipped almost exactly on its head, and we’re now approaching 75 percent international.”
Movies based on American sports do not travel well, and that has scared many studios away from investing in them, Tollin said.
“With the domestic market shrinking and a bigger focus on international distribution, it’s become harder for the economics of sports movies to make sense to studios,” he said. “We don’t think the appetite has decreased at all, but we acknowledge that the marketplace has shifted.”
The way forward, Tollin said, is to focus on keeping production costs as low as possible.
“We’re trying to reinvent the economics,” he said. “‘The Bleeder’ was by far the lowest-budget sports movie we’ve ever done. We were able to put together a cast and shoot on location in New York — restaging the Ali-Wepner fight — for under $5 million. We’re excited about that. We’re re-energized about doing more sports movies.”
