Hannover House, the independent movie production and distribution company, recently relocated, but directions to the new place are pretty simple as the company found a new office at 355 N. College Ave., just across the street from its former headquarters at 300 N. College in downtown Fayetteville.
The move wasn’t a clean getaway as Hannover House’s former landlord, Mathias Shopping Centers Inc. of Springdale, filed suit in Washington County Circuit Court alleging Hannover House owes slightly more than $34,000 in unpaid rent, according to the suit filed by attorney Joel Kurtz of the Williams Law Firm in Gentry.
Hannover House moved to the Mathias-owned building, across Dickson Street from the Washington County Courthouse in 2016 and left the 1,597-SF place on Feb. 14.
“We haven’t seen the lawsuit,” said Hannover House CEO Eric Parkinson. “We got tired of them not properly charging us.”
Parkinson said Hannover House didn’t need the bigger space it was in and when the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement on what was owed, Hannover House left.
Hannover House is also in the midst of business model transition as it begins to focus on producing and distributing higher quality feature films and launching MyFlix, an online streaming service for independent movies that is scheduled to start in 2019.
In its blog, the company said the model of depending on customers buying $9 independent movies from Walmart’s movie bin isn’t sustainable, saying “NO more B-minus indie horror” films. MyFlix’s website said it would offer individual titles for $1.99 each or monthly all-you-can-watch plans starting at $8.
As if the new business model isn’t enough of a headache, President and COO Fred Shefte, a longtime banker and entrepreneur in northwest Arkansas, missed two months of work in late 2018 with heart and lung problems that were corrected with heart surgery Oct. 18, the blog said. When contacted this past week, Shefte said he was too busy to talk but he was back to full health.
“There was a period of time we thought he was a goner,” Parkinson said. “He kind of came back from the dead.”
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