Welcome to the show folks...
Last Sundance festival marked the premiere of the film Company Men. The movie had a heavyweight cast in the form of a resurgent Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Chris Cooper, a director crossing over from a successful career in television, John Wells, and a relevant storyline considering the current economic climate. While no one was expecting the film to be a big blockbuster, some said it had the potential to find itself a niche, especially during awards season.
Then the film got picked up by the Weinstein
Company.
When that happened I sort of joked that the Weinstein's release plan was to make a lot of promises, then in about 6 months come up with an excuse to bump the film back, and bump it back again, and then finally dump it in the DVD discount bin at a Wal-Mart in Flin-Flon Manitoba.
Well, it turns out that it wasn't a joke, but a pretty accurate prediction, only off by a couple of months.
Now they're promising an Oscar qualifying run in literally theaters, with a wider release in January.
"Sure," he said as the sarcastic irony dripped from his tongue as thick and smooth as tupelo honey, "I believe you."
Which makes me ask this question one more time:
Seriously, because unless it's going to make Bob a lot of cash, or get Harvey qualified for another Oscar, your film is going to get bent over and rogered with a stiff wire brush. It's going to be either re-cut into oblivion, then dumped, or just plain dumped.
Now I know that the indie film market is about as lively as a postmortem Perry Como concert, but it can't be so desperate that the only option is a buyer who buys movies pretty much solely to keep other people from doing anything worthwhile with it.
Sheesh. I'm not the only saying stuff like this, so why aren't these people listening?
Last Sundance festival marked the premiere of the film Company Men. The movie had a heavyweight cast in the form of a resurgent Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Chris Cooper, a director crossing over from a successful career in television, John Wells, and a relevant storyline considering the current economic climate. While no one was expecting the film to be a big blockbuster, some said it had the potential to find itself a niche, especially during awards season.
Then the film got picked up by the Weinstein
Company.When that happened I sort of joked that the Weinstein's release plan was to make a lot of promises, then in about 6 months come up with an excuse to bump the film back, and bump it back again, and then finally dump it in the DVD discount bin at a Wal-Mart in Flin-Flon Manitoba.
Well, it turns out that it wasn't a joke, but a pretty accurate prediction, only off by a couple of months.
Now they're promising an Oscar qualifying run in literally theaters, with a wider release in January.
"Sure," he said as the sarcastic irony dripped from his tongue as thick and smooth as tupelo honey, "I believe you."
Which makes me ask this question one more time:
WHY DO PEOPLE SELL THEIR FILMS TO THE WEINSTEINS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Seriously, because unless it's going to make Bob a lot of cash, or get Harvey qualified for another Oscar, your film is going to get bent over and rogered with a stiff wire brush. It's going to be either re-cut into oblivion, then dumped, or just plain dumped.
Now I know that the indie film market is about as lively as a postmortem Perry Como concert, but it can't be so desperate that the only option is a buyer who buys movies pretty much solely to keep other people from doing anything worthwhile with it.
Sheesh. I'm not the only saying stuff like this, so why aren't these people listening?
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