Whether a production capability is strong or not ultimately depends on whether you have deep pockets, or rather, how much capital you are able to raise. Backed by a Canadian banking consortium, Lionsgate never had to worry about funding. This was the fundamental reason why Lionsgate dared to spend a fortune developing overseas distribution channels despite the suppression from the Big Seven of Hollywood. Therefore, for Lionsgate, what restricted the number of films they produced was never a lack of capital, but rather good scripts and a sufficient pool of talent.
For Summit Entertainment, however, their channels for raising capital were quite limited, so most of the time they had to rely on their own funds to produce films. Summit Entertainment was somewhat similar to Mainland China's Tangren Media—both could only launch one project at a time, and they had to wait until the funds from the previous project were settled before starting the next one. It was precisely this conservative business strategy that caused Tangren Media to miss the fastest-growing decade of the film and television industry in Mainland China. Although Tangren was very famous, their market share was very small. By the time the second decade of the new century arrived and Tangren finally woke up, it was already a bit too late, as the market landscape had roughly been set by then.
Summit Entertainment was much the same, though the only redeeming quality Summit possessed was its distribution capability, whi…
Chapter 313