Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include further perspective on Apparition and to include request for comment by Bob Berney. The original article should have sought comment from Berney, who left the company in May. TheWrap regrets the error.
Apparition, which cut more than half its staff this week in a restructuring hastened by the departure of Bob Berney in May, was overburdened by a huge overhead that had grown during the company’s short existence, according to an executive close to the company.
But once the firm reorganizes to reduce that overhead, Apparition plans to remain in business – and, in fact, the company is currently considering the acquisition of a couple of films.
With employees in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, Apparition reportedly had a high executive payroll and an overhead of hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, making the company’s operation impossible to sustain without hit movies.
“Extremely top-heavy for a company that size, with a ridiculous overhead” was one analyst’s description of the company, which laid off 15 of its 27 staffers this week.
Under Berney, who cofounded the company with owner Bill Pohlad in 2009, Apparition employed close colleagues and family members of Berney’s who had worked with him for many years at Newmarket and other companies. Those staffers, who were part of the cuts in the company, had been expected to possibly resign and follow their former chief when Berney takes a job with Graham King’s GK Films.
Berney declined a request for comment.
But another executive familiar with the workings of Apparition disputed the contention that the company had huge overhead, saying that the staff size was appropriate for the original business plan of the company, which called for the release of about eight films per year.
As things currently stand, however, Apparition has only one film on its slate, Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life.”
In an interview after he quit Apparition in May, Berney suggested that Pohlad had not given him enough reign to buy films to fill the release pipeline for Apparition. Many were shocked when he resigned suddenly on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival.
With a slate of films that proved disappointing at the box office (including “The Runaways” and the Oscar-nominated “Bright Star”), Apparition found the going tough in a market in which independent companies are extremely hard-pressed to turn a profit.
It recently returned “Welcome to the Rileys,” which Berney had bought at Sundance, back to the Sony Worldwide Acquisitions Group. (Photo: Berney, "Runaways" and "Rileys" star Kristen Stewart, and Pohlad.)
Currently, Apparition has a single film on its slate, but that film is one of the year’s most eagerly-awaited releases: “The Tree of Life,” starring Brad Pitt and directed by Terrence Malick.
At some point, the restructuring may involve hiring a replacement for Berney; as an alternative, his duties could be managed by “a couple of key executives,” according to an insider who says “there are really no assumptions” about the eventual makeup of the company.
Tom Ortenberg, a veteran of Lionsgate who now serves as a movie-industry consultant, is advising Pohlad on the restructuring. He will also handle the release and Oscar campaign for the Malick film, which is “nips and tucks” away from being finished, according to someone who’s seen (and loved) it.
Still, Malick can take a notoriously long time to make those final tweaks. Numerous film festivals have expressed interest in the film.
