Two weeks ago, I wondered aloud what the struggles of large film production organizations like the Weinstein Company meant for ATO Pictures, the film production offshoot of Coran Capshaw's media empire. Since 2002, ATO Pictures has served as a production company on a half-dozen films—most prominently, the evil-seed flick Joshua, and Choke, the film adaptation of Chuck "Fight Club" Palahniuk's novel. You might remember that Choke was a hot ticket (and big sale) at Sundance in 2008, and—according to BoxOfficeMojo.com—fared better in domestic and worldwide gross than Joshua did.

As something of a Don DeLillo fan (is that what you call someone who doesn't finish Underworld? Kidding), I've kept an eye out for details on End Zone, a DeLillo-penned football 'n' nukes novel adapted by the team behind Joshua and produced by ATO Pictures. (The film is currently listed as "In production" on IMDB.com.) In my search, I also came across a 2008 Darden "Producers Forum" lecture by ATO Pictures co-founder Temple Fennell. (The video is posted after the text, in full.)

After watching the video, I called Fennell for a quick update on ATO Pictures. While he mentioned the possibility of more news in the not-too-distant future, he mentioned that End Zone is "on hold at the moment" while ATO works on starting its own domestic distribution company, ATO Gotham.

"Primarily, we want to have greater control of our U.S. distribution," said Fennell. "Going out and selling films at Sundance and different markets is really not a viable model anymore for independent films." Both Joshua and Choke were distributed by Fox Searchlight, recently behind (500) Days of Summer.

Not really a surprise, if you ask me—especially given ATO Records' success nabbing a few high-profile distribution deals in recent years. Watch Fennell's lecture below; it's an hour long, but a good insight into one of the minds behind ATO Pictures.

Can ATO Pictures keep the film reels spinning for smaller, independent flicks? Leave your thoughts below.