In het begin in 'The Substance', de Body Horror-film met Demi Moore die is genomineerd voor vijf Academy Awards, verbruikt Dennis Quaid Grotesk een eindeloze hoeveelheid peel-and-chrims die mevrouw Moore's karakter afvuurt voor de misdaad van het draaien van 50. Shells Fly and Sweat verzamelt zich op zijn bovenlip terwijl hij Gesticuleert met een crustacean Wobblean Wobling in His Fingertips.
It was this scene that Ephe Cakarel, the Chief Executive of the Niche Streaming Service Mubi, convinced that he had to buy the daring horror film. The film was left for death by Universal Pictures after the director, Coralie Fargeeat, refused to bring it back to the taste of managers.
“This was something incredibly unique,” said Mr. Cakarel. “This would be our first global acquisition. I had never been so sure. '
What followed was a purchase of $ 12 million for the worldwide rights to the film, and a rare success story in the middle of the Doom-en-Wom times of the Hollywood film activities. “The Substance” has now earned more than $ 82 million worldwide and stands for Best Picture and Best Director, and Mrs. Moore is the hard favorite to win the best actress during the Academy Awards of this weekend. And it has catapulted Mubi, as soon as a company lost in the swamp of harmless four-letter word streaming services, for the first time in a real Hollywood player.
The company has made the leap with an unusual business model. Subscribers of the service, which starts at $ 14.99, receive a composite selection of independent films, from classics to new releases. Subscribers of a higher layer, the $ 19.99 Mubi Go, also receive a weekly ticket to a theater in the United States, Great Britain or Germany. The company, which is located in London and has 400 employees worldwide, refused to reveal how many people pay for the service, but said that 16 million people had registered on the site.
“Somehow they have succeeded in making the impossible,” said Eric Fellner, producer of “the substance,” said Mubi. The company, he said, was able to “come out a large audience worldwide and view it – which is not a small achievement nowadays – and yet to get a premium piece of work for their members.”
For Mr Cakarel, a 48-year-old Turkish entrepreneur with an engineering diploma from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Stanford, this was always the plan.
He founded the company in 2007 – the same year that Netflix started streaming films and television shows – as a service for film lovers. The goal was to support the theatrical film experience and to put together high-end films on his service. Originally called the authors, the service started offering subscribers a new film per day, with every film staying on the service for 30 days. But Mr. Cakarel didn't just want a movie. He was interested in only the best films of the most praised filmmakers.
“Mubi, from day 1, has always been really stubborn about Cinema,” he said.
It took years to get one of the Hollywood studios to buy in his idea.
“I would go to a big studio and I would say,” These are the 32 titles that I would like to get, “Mr Cakarel said.” They would say, “No, this is not how this company works. If you get those titles, you should get these titles too.”
“They would literally throw me out of their offices,” he added.
Subsequently, both Sony and Paramount came to give MUBI films in 2015 for his subscribers in Great -Britain. In 2017, the company signed its first multi -year, MultiTritory Streaming Deal with Universal Pictures, giving Mubi international access to films in his library as “A Serious Man”, by Joel and Ethan Coen; “Being John Malkovich,” by Spike Jonze; “Double Indemnity” by Billy Wilder; And a handful of films by Alfred Hitchcock.
In 2016, the company began to distribute films in theaters in selected markets, in 2022 up to date with the films, including Charlotte Wells 'Aftertersun', which it released in Great -Britain, Latin -America and Germany, and Sofia Coppolas 'Priscilla', which released it in the same areas.
In 2022, Mr Cakarel said that he spent an “irrational amount” to acquire the American and British theatrical rights to park Chan-Wooks 'decision', which became the highest profit film of the Korean filmmaker in the United States. The “The Girl With The Needle” function is a nominee in the best international film category of the Academy.
“It was about a steady incremental growth over time,” says Jason Ropell, Chief Content Officer of Mubi. “Hire the right people. Raise money. All that happened incrementally. We were ready when this opportunity occurred. '
The chance to jump on “the substance” arose after Universal Pictures said Mrs. Fargeeat that it would not release the film in its current form, which was in the making for almost five years, but she was allowed to shop elsewhere.
“Nobody took my phone calls anymore,” she said this month at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. “Everyone thought my movie was dead.”
But she went in the film in the Cannes Film Festival, which accepted it in his 2024 competition.
Mr Cakarel had followed Mrs Fargeeat's work after her film 'Revenge' 2017 performed well with the MUBI audience. While he was on vacation in Vietnam, he saw the announcement of the attitude of Cannes; reached for the working title, the producers behind the film; And days later was in a screening room in London to watch the movie.
“I left the screening room and struck walls through excitement,” he said. “I hadn't seen anything like that for a long time.”
Mr Cakarel surpassed the colleague -Indie distributor Neon and bought the global rights to “the substance” prior to the debut of Cannes. The film has since reached heights that perhaps only Mrs Fargeeat was possible.
When Mrs. Moore won the best actress prize on the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, she thanked Mr Cakarel. “I think that as a result of the reception of this film, other daring original films will be made,” said Mr Cakarel.
This year the company bought the American rights to the Hollywood -Satire 'Lurker', one of the few acquisitions at the Sundance Film Festival of this winter. And it recently announced the acquisition of the North -American rights to 'The History of Sound', a gay romantic film with Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal.
“The platform itself is a favorite with fans at filmmakers,” said the WME -independent agent Will Maxfield, who sold the “passages” of Ira Sachs to the company in 2023 and negotiated the “lurker” agreement with Mubi at Sunday. “And they have built their brand as a filmmaker-friendly distributor.”
This year, the streamer ventures for the first time in original productions with three films, Kelly Reichardt's “The Mastermind”, an almost $ 20 million robbery film with Mr O'Connor; Jim Jarmusch's 'father, mother, sister, brother', starring Cate Blanchett and Adam driver; and “Rosebush pruning”, with Riley Keough and Elle Fanning. MUBI is still small compared to other streaming services, but this year it is planning to release around 20 films – a welcome addition to the independent film room that has difficulty making contact with cinema visitors.
“The last 18 years have been really good,” Mr Cakarel said. “The next 18 years will be incredible. I feel it's day 1. Everything comes together. '
