Archive for the ‘Distribution’ Category
Filed under: Drama, Distribution, Exhibition, Remakes and Sequels
Gordon Gekko’s release from prison has been delayed. He was all set to hit the bright lights of Manhattan once again on April 23, showing the young Shia LaBeouf a thing or two about greed and piles of pretty cash. But The Hollywood Reporter posts that the film will no longer be released next month, or even over the summer for that matter. Fox is bumping the Wall Street sequel until the fall — September 24, to be exact.
What’s prompted the studio to push Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps five months? Personally, I wonder if they’re hoping to give the film a flashy TIFF premiere and use it as a kick off to awards season — making it a film relatively fresh on voters’ minds when the Academy starts looking towards next year’s Oscars. Pretty much all the big films that hit screens in September and October get screened during the Toronto festival these days (or Venice), and I can’t see an Oliver Stone film not hitting one of the fest’s ritzy gala openings.
Does this bode well for the film? Think what you will about Shia LaBeouf (who, I must say, offered a surprising performance in New York, I Love You), but this puppy has got a lot of star power extending beyond the questionable star. There is, of course, Michael Douglas, but also Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, and recent Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan. If the trailer and cast are any indication, we might just have a worthy sequel on our hands.
Filed under: Classics, Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Deals, Box Office, Distribution, Cinematical Indie
Deals. Scott Caan stars in Mercy, which has been picked up by IFC Films, according to indieWIRE. Caan, who also wrote and produced, plays a romance novelist “who doesn’t believe in love.” Until, I’m sure, he meets the right woman, possibly the beautiful and mysterious title character (Wendy Glenn). Caan’s real-life father, the legendary James Caan, plays his fictional father. Mercy will close this year’s Gen Art Film Festival, which Erik Davis recently explained is the coolest thing ever. The film will be available on demand on April 28 before opening theatrically in New York and Los Angeles.
Also due in theaters this spring: Jean-Luc Godard’s original, daring, influential Breathless. For the first time in its 50 years of existence, the film has been restored, making the new wave look new again. After debuting at the inaugural TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood next month, it will open at New York’s Film Forum on May 28 before rolling out nationally, courtesy of Rialto Pictures. I first saw Breathless at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles many moons ago, and it left me stunned, so I’m very happy that a new generation will be able to experience Breathless the way it was meant to be seen.
Online / On Demand Viewing. If you’re not ‘mock-doc’ averse, you’ll want to take a look at What the Funny?, a new web series by Lynn Shelton that’s debuting exclusively on Babelgum this week. Shelton made the bromance male relationship flick Humpday, so she knows a little bit about dry and humorous. The first episode is up, and if you like it, you can look forward to ten more episodes in the days ahead.
After the jump: a secret, a prophet, and dolphins.
Continue reading Indie Roundup: ‘Mercy,’ ‘Breathless’ (Yeah, That One)
Filed under: Distribution, Home Entertainment
Blockbuster is going down hard, folks. Variety reports that following their “disastrous” third quarter, the company lost $435 million in the fourth quarter, was downgraded from “Caa1″ to “Caa3″ junk status, and sees its shares down 2/3 over last year. The end has got to be very near. Very near.
I remember, long ago, when Blockbuster was the place for movies. I grew up in a small, “Video World” town where only the newest releases, biggest classics, and crappiest B movies ever hit the shelves. One day, after years of mediocrity, I was in a neighboring city and finally got to visit the famous Blockbuster. it was a smorgasbord of films I’d never seen nor heard of. I was in love. If it hadn’t been a half-hour away, I would’ve been there every day.
Fast forward almost two decades and I watched my neighborhood Blockbuster close without the slightest warning. Customers ventured out to return their rentals, and found the windows papered over and the whole biz just gone. The next closest store just had a closing super sale where they sold off their entire collection. The question now seems to be: How many months or days does the biz have left? As they bring back late fees and limit rentals in an attempt to stay afloat, I can’t imagine them hanging on for another year.
Filed under: Documentary, Foreign Language, Independent, Thrillers, Deals, SXSW, Box Office, Distribution, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Indie
Indie Roundup is your weekly guide to what’s new and upcoming in the world of independent film. Pictured clockwise, from upper left: Dr. Portnoy: Provacateur, Erasing David, Crying With Laughter, Centurion.
Online / On Demand Viewing. Have you had your fill of Jay Leno and late night TV programming fiascos? Me too! Still, the premise of Dr. Portnoy: Provacateur sounds refreshing. Debuting exclusively on Hulu, the new web series revolves around artist Michael Portnoy, who, as a talk show host, promises to ‘get down to the bottom of what makes his guests tick.’ Actor Alan Cumming, musician Melissa Auf Der Maur (Smashing Pumpkins), and John Cooper (Director of the Sundance Film Festival) are among the guests who subject themselves to scrutiny in the six-episode series.
Austin, Texas will become the center of the independent film world when South by Southwest (SXSW) gets underway next week, and you can share in the festivities without leaving the comfort of your own home. Two SXSW titles, David Bond’s documentary Erasing David (a man tries to disappear and is hounded by private investigators) and Justin Molotnikov’s thriller Crying With Laughter, will be available via iTunes and Amazon VOD during SXSW, according to indieWIRE, and will then be available on demand via multiple cable systems on April 1.
Deals. Our friends at indieWIRE also reported on two acquisitions this week. Heading for the big screen is Neil Marshall’s sword and sandal thriller Centurion, courtesy of Magnet (read further observations by Elisabeth Rappe and watch the exciting trailer right here at Cinematical), while Leon Gast’s celebrity photog doc Smash His Camera heads to the small screen on HBO.
After the jump: a ghost, a prophet, and a steal at the box office.
Continue reading Indie Roundup: ‘Dr. Portnoy,’ SXSW On Demand
Filed under: Documentary, Independent, New Releases, Distribution
There’s never any shortage of bad movies in theaters, but how many can say they’ve shown a good movie about a bad movie? That opportunity will come this spring, when Best Worst Movie — Michael Stephenson’s documentary about the legendarily awful Troll 2 — finally hits theaters.
The distributor is Area23A, a brand-new company formed by Richard Abramowitz and Kirt Eftekhar, both of whom have plenty of experience getting small independent films into theaters. Best Worst Movie premiered at South By Southwest last year (here’s Will Goss’ favorable review) and has since played at more than 15 other fests, winning prizes at four of them. It’s been a hit with festival audiences; hopefully regular moviegoers will be charmed by its deconstruction of a cult classic, too.
Speaking of which, you’ll definitely appreciate Best Worst Movie more if you’ve seen Troll 2 (and you will appreciate Troll 2 more if you’ve been drinking heavily). A double feature seems like a no-brainer, maybe as a special event in select cities. The head honchos at Area23A say they have plans for that very thing, the details of which are forthcoming.
So far, all we have on the Best Worst Movie release is “spring,” but we’ll keep you posted when the exact date is announced. In the meantime, check out the doc’s trailer after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Best Worst Movie’ Will Come Trolling to Theaters
Filed under: Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Deals, Distribution, Cinematical Indie
Indie Roundup is your weekly guide to what’s new and upcoming in the world of independent film. Pictured from left to right: Animal Kingdom, No One Knows About the Persian Cats, Holy Rollers.
Deals. Five more indies will be seeking your support (and theatrical dollars) in the coming months. Highlights below; hit the links for details, as reported by our friends at indieWIRE.
Animal Kingdom takes a peek inside the criminal underworld in Melbourne, Australia. “Director David Michod has created a well-paced, dark and moody thriller,” opined our own Kevin Kelly when the film debuted at Sundance last month. Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all US and Latin American rights; release plans have not yet been announced.
No One Knows About the Persian Cats examines the youth and underground music scene in Tehran, Iran. Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, the film gained buzz after debuting at Cannes last year, and will be playing at SXSW next month. Release via IFC in Theaters, (on demand simultaneous with theatrical release), is expected sometime this year.
Holy Rollers features Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland) as “a devoted yet wayward Hasidic Jew in late 1990’s New York City who somehow becomes involved in an international ecstasy ring.” Look for the Sundance premiere to hit theaters in early to mid summer, with distribution to be handled by First Independent Pictures.
Other pickups: Army of Crime (immigrant French Resistance fighters in Paris; Lorber Films expects to release this spring or summer) and Puzzle (Argentine housewife discovers a new gift which may change her life; IFC Films will send it on the fall festival rounds, followed by a theatrical release).
After the jump: Roman Polanski at the box office, and the festival scene.
Continue reading Indie Roundup: ‘Animal Kingdom,’ ‘Persian Cats,’ ‘Holy Rollers’
Filed under: Distribution, Newsstand, Movie Marketing
Nothing like some depressing news to start off a Monday. B-Side Entertainment, the company that’s been distributing indie films and making incredibly useful interactive online guides for a number of film festivals, is closing its doors. Filmmaker magazine reports that the Austin-based company laid off most of its staff last week and is now trying to find homes for the movies still in B-Side’s pipeline.
The reason is the one you hear a lot these days: the funding ran out. B-Side’s CEO and founder, Chris Hyams, said the venture capital firm that had been backing them pulled out in late 2009. “We have spent the last four or five months looking for [an] alternative…. But we reached the end of our cash before we could secure new investment. We had to shut the company down.”
To use the official economic term, this sucks. Let me here recount some of the ways this sucks.
1) B-Side’s “Festival Genius” software was aptly named. Anyone who’s ever gone to a film festival has been tormented by the schedule. If you see Film A at Time X, you’ll miss Film B, which starts at Time Y. But maybe you can catch Film B at Time Z later in the week — oh, but then it conflicts with Film C. The Festival Genius would help you work out a feasible schedule for participating festivals, and it had social-networking elements too: share your schedule with friends and colleagues, rate the movies after you’ve seen them, and so forth. It was a niche tool, sure — it’s a small percentage of the world’s population that goes to film festivals — but for that niche, it was a miraculously ingenious and easy-to-use solution.
Filed under: Documentary, Fandom, Distribution, Games and Game Movies
The Hollywood Reporter announced that IFC Films has acquired North American rights to the Berlin International Film Fest title, Puzzle, directed by Natalia Smirnoff. The Argentine film will be released this year after the fall festival roundup via IFC’s In Theaters platform–making the VOD version available the same day as the theatrical premiere.
Puzzle follows forty-something housewife Maria del Carmen (Maria Onetto) who has doted on her husband and children for the past twenty years. When she receives a puzzle as a birthday present, she suddenly discovers she has a gift for assembling them at lightning speed–something her family ignores. As her passion for puzzles grows, the bonds of her relationships are tested.
We can add this title to the long list of narrative films and documentaries that pay homage to the geeky hobbies and games many of us love. Puzzle takes its place alongside fictional films like Mazes and Monsters, Fanboys and The Wild Hunt, as well as “true-life” celebrations of our nerdy passions like Trekkies or The Dungeons & Dragons Experience.
Filed under: Distribution
You’ve probably heard by now: AMC Theatres is threatening to boycott Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. Earlier in the week, some European theater chains made similar threats. Why? Because Disney is planning to shorten the theatrical-to-DVD release window from 17 weeks to 12 weeks, which would mean that the movie will hit DVD around June 1st. Why does AMC care, given that none of its theaters are likely to actually keep the movie for 12 weeks? Well, presumably if people know that a movie is going to be available for home viewing in just a little while, they’re less likely to invest in a trip to the theater. If you assume — rationally — that a given movie will ultimately make only a certain amount of money, shortening the DVD window decreases distributors’ slice of the pie — or so the theater owners argue.
This isn’t the first time that disputes over revenue sharing have spilled over and threatened to affect moviegoers. Back in 2001, Regal refused to show Rush Hour 2 because New Line wouldn’t budge on contract terms. The movie opened to $67 million anyway, and Regal was seen as having blundered. A couple years ago, British cinemas pulled the plug on Night at the Museum in the middle of its release when Fox decided to put the movie on DVD just over 12 weeks after release. More recently, Regal balked at having to foot the bill for 3D glasses and threatened to show Ice Age 3 in 2D only, but that turned out to be a bluff (possibly because Fox had Avatar in the pipeline).
Continue reading What’s This Hullaballoo over AMC Theatres and ‘Alice in Wonderland’?
Filed under: Warner Brothers, Celebrities and Controversy, Distribution, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Movie Marketing
Test screening reports have been very positive on the film (several Cinematical readers were there, and had good things to say about it) so I don’t think its release date dance is a reflection of the film. I think it’s more likely that studio executives realized that average moviegoers were going to get the marketing all muddled. This could have played to The Losers’ advantage given their earlier release date — “Honey, let’s go see that A-Team movie! The Star Trek girl is in it!” — but it also could have hurt it. People have limited movie funds, after all, and name recognition is a powerful thing.
Now The Losers will be the only embattled mercenaries of their month. As of today, their only competition is MacGruber and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Once again, they’ll face off with nostalgia (“Let’s see what Gordon Gecko is up to, dear!”) but now there’s a little something for everyone that weekend. Oh, for the good old days when movies just came out on any given weekend, regardless of who was there and waiting ….
