- "Until this film, you would have had to find an international distributor to do individual broadcast and theatrical deals," says Steven Rosenbaum, director of "The Outsider."
- "Once you got past big English-speaking markets, it wouldn’t have been worth it," he says. "Without Facebook, all of the mid-sized and smaller markets would never see this."
Details: "The Outsider," a controversial documentary about the construction of the 9/11 museum in Manhattan, will be released publicly for the first time on Facebook for $3.99 on Aug. 19.
- The film will be available via Facebook Live to worldwide Facebook users that pay for access at 8 p.8:00 p.m. ET via a link provided by the film's distributor.
- Facebook will be providing some paid promotion to help popularize the event. After the debut it will also be available for on-demand viewing.
- The premiere can be viewed by any Facebook users in countries where Paid Online Events are available. Currently, they are available in more than 100 countries worldwide.
- Facebook has committed to not taking a cut of any ticketed events or revenue from independent creators until 2023.
- The global debut will be followed by a panel discussion on Facebook Live. The film will play in select theaters and on-demand via streaming in September.
How it works: Like any other ticketed event on Facebook, the distributors of the film — a global film distribution company called Abramorama — set the price for the premiere.
- Rosenbaum said the goal was to keep the price low enough for now to be able to attract a wide audience.
- Facebook has been home to exclusive streaming shows and live events for months, but it's never premiered a film before.
The film documents the drama behind the construction of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Its directors, Pamela Yoder and Steven Rosenbaum, have spent nearly two decades archiving the story.
- Given that nearly 1/3 of the museum's visitors are international, Rosenbaum said an international audience was important for the film's debut.
Controversy around the documentary also makes the premiere notable.
- The museum's management has called it "defamatory" for its portrait of what interviewees in the film refer to as the "Disneyfication" of 9/11.
- The museum has argued that the film's lens is "ideological." Rosenbaum has responded that it's "focused on free speech, and open debate and discussion."
What to watch: "The Outsider" is the first movie to be distributed this way, and it's unclear yet what price consumers are wiling to pay for any movie, let alone a documentary, on Facebook.
