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...or just because
on complete trust, admiration and
respect, so these other things had no
impact at all."
Taking The Plunge
By 1995, the friends had moved to
Hollywood, hooked up with a pro-
ducer and were struggling to finance
their gangster film.
It was Frugal Living, 101: "We
were staying in the guest house
behind our producer's home," says
Johnson, 35. "We didn't even have a
car."
After three years of work, the rela-
tionship with the producer soured
and the movie deal fell through. But
the cloud had a silver lining: Through
the producer they'd met Fred Smith,
the near-billionaire founder of Federal
Express, who recognized kindred spir-
its in the young entrepreneurs.
"We helped him find distribution
for a stalled film he'd financed, and in
return he agreed to read our business
plan for launching a production com-
pany that would maximize profit and
minimize risk," Kosove says.
The 220-page plan outlined strate-
gies such as developing creative deals
with talent, pursuing studio distribu-
tion, sticking to commercial -genres
such as thrillers and slashing budgets
(hence the prefab office furniture).
According to Kosove, it "tried to corn-
bine the best of the independent and
studio worlds."
Smith could relate because, while at
Yale in 1965, he'd also written a paper
outlining a new kind of business —
one that in 1971 became FedEx.
Though Smith received a "C" on
his paper, he gave Kosove and
Broderick a solid "A": "It was one of
the most well-thought-out plans I had
ever seen," he told the Los Angeles
Times.
In 1997, the tycoon agreed to
bankroll Alcon, named for a mytho-
logical archer who never missed his
mark. He stuck with the producers
even when their first film, Lost
Found, tanked at the box office.
Smith was rewarded when Alcon's
second movie, the $7.5 million family
drama My Dog Skip, grossed $35 mil-
lion and convinced Warner Bros. to
sign a five-year, 10-picture distribu-
tion agreement.
Savvy Economics
The way the duo does business is
indicative of what could become a
new trend in show business: While
many independents pre-sell movies
to raise financing (which often
means a forfeiting of profits), Alcon
puts up 100 percent of production
costs, pays Warner Bros. a reduced
distribution fee and gets to utilize
the studio's worldwide distribution
system while keeping profits and
copyrights.
"The economics of production have
become more and more difficult for
the studios because of the huge over-
heads they're carrying and the posi-
tion they've put themselves in, where
they're paying exorbitant fees to tal-
ent," says Kosove, who is married and
attends University Synagogue, a
Reconstructionist congregation in
Irvine, Calif.
"They've had to figure out ways to
keep their distribution pipelines full
while reducing their risk in financing
films, which has provided opportuni-
ties for a company like Alcon."
Along the way, the producers have
proved their mettle with a series of
prescient creative decisions. For their
18th-century period drama, The
Affair of the Necklace, they cast the
then-obscure actress Hilary Swank
months before she earned an Oscar
nomination for Boys Don't Cry.
Swank, who went on to win the
2000 Oscar for best actress, said she
signed on to Insomnia partly because
the producers "make the set such a
creative and productive environment
for the actors."
Kosove and Broderick also managed
to hire Christopher Nolan to direct
Insomnia before the release of his
2000 feature, Memento, which
received Oscar nominations and
numerous awards.
"As an up-and-coming company, we
try to invest in other up-and-corners,"
Kosove says.
In Insomnia, Robin Williams, cast
against type as a psychopathic killer,
plays cat and mouse with a shady
LAPD cop (Pacino) in an Alaskan
hamlet.
The gripping thriller — a remake of
a 1997 Norwegian film — is set dur-
ing the perpetual sunlight of an Arctic
summer.
Kosove, who grew up attending one
of Philadelphia's oldest Reform syna-
gogues, Rodeph Shalom, implies the
flick has a Jewish value or two.
In the glare of the constant sun-
light, cop Will Dormer can't sleep
because his conscience is grappling
with his yetzer harah (evil inclination).
"His insomnia is the physical mani-
festation of his psychic struggle,"
Kosove says. "He's a character in
moral conflict." ❑
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