SPHINX: Genesis - a Christian Pichler shortfilm

Existence

Market Trends And The Commercial Success Of SPHINX

The Distribution Dilemma

In recent years VOD companies have taken over media distribution and by its enourmous subscription fee success was able to produce their own media in order to enlarge their databases.
The majority of that "original" content is nothing but a re-invention of a concept already done in the past one way or another and this practice oversaturated the market by the large amount of content produced daily. People scroll through thousands of shows and

films without any meaning nor message whatsoever, they basically have the option to watch one concept (zombies, alien encounters, good guy catches villain) in thousands of different variations with different faces and other locations - but the concept is always the same.

Netflix even went so far to remake a fresh concept several times. "A quiet place (2018)" became a theatrical box office hit and Netflix decided to redo it as "Bird Box (2019)" and "The Silence (2019)" and will most certainly produce several spin-off shows of the same concept. It's smart business practice, a successful film means that people are interested, so a VOD company makes the logic move to give the audience what they appear to desire.

Historical Market Strategy

Film always helped the audience to escape reality and the best way to do it is to create environments or characters they can relate to. While the 60s were full of western films, the 70s focused on crime and thriller. Some horror films found their launch (Jaws, Texas Chainsaw, Friday 13th) but the 80s focused on comedy and broadened supernatural stories (Aliens, ET) that first got their start during the space race in the 60s. The 90s introduced the audience to tv-shows with broad appeal (Beverly Hills, Melrose Place) and extended the supernatural (Stargate, Independence Day). When the market got flooded with new digital technologies everybody started making cheap films - and George Romero's "zombie" concept started to gain broad appeal by the production of thousands of zombie related films in the mid 2000s all the way to hundreds of zombie-based TV shows helmed by "The Walking Dead". People enjoy simple horror but the theatrical success moved over to the unknown that challenges people's inner desires and questions. Films like "Inception", "Interstellar" and especially supernatural HERO concepts helmed by "Marvel" (X-Men, Avengers, Cptn America) or several continuations of Star Wars and FX loaded hero films like "Transformers" dominated the theatrical market and differentiated the VOD scene from the box office that makes people actually GO TO A THEATER, pay for a ticket and enjoy something "different".

Current Market

Mankind is heading into a spiritual era while our technology constantly advances. The inner desires to reach Mars (Space X), explore the universe and the question of "are we alone" becomes predominant. Alien Encounters and the 'what if' question has mesmerized the audience for decades (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Signs, Avatar, Arrival, War of The Worlds) and will continue to do so. The unknown is what challenges people's mind, it is what takes the audience on a journey and breaks away from the oversaturated VOD market and its reinvented wheel-productions.

The Sphinx Agenda and Success

The story of SPHINX challenges human evolution and accepts widely spread conspiracy theories wrapped into alien interventations of the creation. While a small amount of an erie and horror touch carry certain scenes, adventurous elements carry a thrilling story around the LOST ATLANTIS, the egyptian EMERALD TABLETS or the spiritual ZERO POINT theory that supposedly enabled enlightenment to masterminds such as Einstein, Tesla or DaVinci. Mythical creatures and monsters including dragons and demons enhance the supernatural elements. The story allows the audience to escape into a world of conspiracies and will make them question what they know and have experienced in their lives. It opens different pathways in human history from the alternative truth behind the Egyptian Empire or even the Third Reich all the way to the cradle of man.

Financial Success

The SPHINX film touches the core elements of ALL recent blockbuster successes (A quiet place, Interstellar, Star Wars) and combines old elements of success (Indiana Jones, Clash of the Titans) with an original story based on highly successful ancient alien theory concepts which is followed by hundreds of millions (History's Ancient Aliens counts 1-2 million US viewers per episode). This film will highly appeal theatrical distribution markets in:

CHINA (due to its origin elements of dragons and the Yellow Emperor)
EUROPE (due to its filming locations and previous alien success films)
SOUTH/LATIN AMERICA (due to its conspiracy elements of the Mayans and Incas)
MIDDLE EAST (due to its historical egyptian elements)

The SPHINX film might spark a series of future motion pictures and shows but will remain the one that started it all.

Production & Financials

While certain known actors will helm the project, the production will be sourced primarily by fresh inspired talent. VFX will be produced for a fraction of the cost of US studios and technology will be licensed rather than reinvented, cutting a 50m USD VFX budget to 10m USD if necessary. Having superb new talent and their fresh experiences and abilities to master developed effects will maximize production quality at a normal cost. The idea is to hold costs at a minimum to maximize profits.

VOD companies and US film studios will continuously offer overinflated budgets for mediocre stories simply to burn through money and keep an avenue open for filmmakers and artists to get paid a lot. However, SPHINX will keep a budget competitive yet source primarily filmmakers and artists that carry the artistic spark and massive interest in creating a film that might change the course of thinking for many.