Continued ...
May 13, 2002

KING DONG:  Tom King of the Wall Street Journal Weekend Section got pretty close to getting a story right this Friday.  His column (click here if you have a WSJ Online subscription) goes into Sony’s shenanigans in getting four trailers attached to the Spider-Man release, when normally, it would have no more than one or two.  This convention of limited numbers of trailers is part of an ongoing gentlemen’s agreement made between the studios through the MPAA, which limits the right of the releasing studio to attach their own trailers to their films at a length of up to 2 minutes and 30 seconds.   The reason for the limitation in the first place was that pre-shows were getting too long and the industry agreed that 15 minutes was a reasonable maximum. 

What Sony did on Spider-Man was to strong-arm exhibitors by demanding a verbal agreement that theaters play not only a one minute teaser for XXX and a 90-second trailer for Mr. Deeds, but the two full-length two minute trailers for Men In Black II and Stuart Little 2.  The same tactic was used by Warner Bros. on Harry Potter.  King gets the expected denials that rules are being broken from MPAA and NATO officials and batted eyelash innocence from Sony’s savvy veteran distribution chief, Jeff Blake.  He doesn’t push too hard, though anyone with a brain knows that this, along with the Potter thing, marks the beginning of the end of the gentlemen’s agreement and the beginning of trailer positions being negotiated along with percentages, theater size and length of dates for every major event film and, eventually, every film.  Ultimately that will require a new gentlemen’s agreement, as pre-shows seem likely to start running 25 minutes again.   `        

So why wasn’t King’s coverage perfect?  Well, he left out a significant part of the story which, ironically enough, he had already covered in his column almost a year ago.  On May 25, 2002, King’s column included a bit on Sony’s purchase of a trailer slot for The Animal in theaters playing The Mummy Returns.  In that case, Sony paid around $100,000 to four chains to assure placement.  John Lippman, one of the quality WSJ entertainment reporters, wrote the complete story on May 24, including the hair-splitting argument that minute-long trailer for The Animal was really a paid ad. 

So, two summers in a row, Sony has unilaterally changed the playing field for the studios’ most effective marketing tool, the trailer.  Last year, Jeff Blake called it “good marketing.” And it was.  This year, Blake is saying that it’s fair because the exhibitors are selling the studio’s high quality films that they will be making money with all summer long.   Possibly.  Though I feel like his answer to that question is like answering the “What are your worst qualities as am employee?” question at a job interview by saying that you work too hard. 

But one thing I know is that every other studio will consider Sony’s actions this summer unfair, even if they forgave last summer’s The Animal exploits because Sony actually spent cash.  If I’m Disney, I’m going to be pressuring theaters – especially Pacific, where they have a fiscal entanglement – to not run Stuart Little 2 trailers with Lilo & Stitch.  And if I’m Warner Bros., I’m pressuring theaters that want to run a sure-to-sell-a-few tickets trailer for The Matrix Reloaded to not run trailers for competitive films.  And if I’m Universal, I’m thinking about selling Disney my trailer slot on Undercover Brother for Bad Company because I don’t have any more Black appeal films this summer and fans of Eddie Griffin will probably be a strong audience for Chris Rock… hell, if I’m Disney, I’m paying $100,000 and cutting a special trailer for the Undercover Brother crowd.

In other words, creativity can easily become commercially driven havoc.  Does it matter?  Well, it’s all a matter of perspective.  Does it matter that the grocery store give you a card so they can track what you spend at their stores and can then market selectively to you?  It’s an invasion or privacy, but maybe you like to have stuff you might like marketed to you.  Does it matter to you that the smaller players, who can’t pay, will get squeezed out? 

READERS OF THE DAY:   The French Revolution Misspelled writes:  “Dave, I just don't get it, I'm monitoring Attack of the Clones reviews as they hit and...I've never seen more groups of people review a film more schizophrenically in my life. On the one hand, you have Harry Knowles and Moriarity loving it; but you also have indie-man Chris Gore at Film Threat freaking for it too. There's your positive review, and even Jeff Wells saw past his personal Lucas-vision to enjoy some of it.  You've got Variety doing cartwheels for it, and then it turns with Hollywood Reporter and EW lambasting it. And then the NY Times utterly excoriates it today with a review that seems to understand *nothing* about the whole SW mythos, and word is that Phantom Menace-defender Roger Ebert didn't like the film much at all, but Roeper loved it. And God knows what Time and Newsweek are gonna say. Traditionally Time has always gave the Star Wars series its blessings and Newsweek the first to point out flaws, but who knows.

I mean, huh??

You've seen the film, what are the elements causing all these weirdly polarized reactions from unexpected quarters? Is it some media critics entirely out-of-touch, or is it a disappointed fan base desperately putting all their hopes on AOTC? Is it Lucas playing it so close to the edge of his own brand of entertainment, that it's inevitable for people to have their own personal reaction (or overreaction)?

I'm curious what you think from your post-viewing perspective.”

DAVID RESPONDS:  To simplify, it all depends on which perch you sit as a critic.  No film has ever come close to the visual complexity and beauty.  Ebert complained about the images, but I have a feeling, odd as it is, that he saw a problem print.  I can’t believe that the film looks that much worse on film than on digital tape.  Clones won’t stand up to the same kind of criticism that one would use on, say, a Michael Mann film.  Of course, Ali didn’t hold up to that kind of criticism this last year, as Mann made a movie that wandered into its opening and close, leaving critics unsettled.  Clones is an action film that has a love story that is not terribly convincing because of at least one actor… unless you go with it.  Then again, The Godfather is a romanticized view of callous murderers… unless you go with it.  I’m having some butterflies about Clone reviews, since I can’t really say that A.O. “When Am I Moving To Op-Ed?” Scott or David Thomson are wrong for their blistering words, but I can’t say that Todd McCarthy or Harry Knowles is wrong either.  I think the reason you are seeing such schizophrenia this time is that the people who can least get over The Phantom Menace are the critics and we can all (almost all) tell that Clones is a better movie than Menace and we are faced with choosing to write an “it’s better” review or slamming it on the higher plane.  Me?  It’s my job to give you enough information so you know where to look while making your own decision.  There are too many great things in the film to piss on it and too many flaws to fall completely in love.

Rocky’s Wife & Bad Tacos write:  “Glad to hear About A Boy might not be so bad after all...the thought of omitting both the book's punky 'Ellie' character and the whole Kurt Cobain parallel story had me a bit concerned.

(DAVID NOTE:  Ellie is not omitted… just truncated a bit, including the Cobain thing.)

I have to plug the movie's soundtrack, done by the astoundingly talented British songwriter Badly Drawn Boy. It's been out for nearly a month already, and works incredibly well on its own. It's one of those rare movie soundtracks that don't require you to see the movie beforehand to appreciate it, and is one of the best albums of the year. Wonderful, gentle instrumentals, a few moments of light kookiness, and two gorgeous, gorgeous songs in the Lennonesque "Silent Sigh' and Elliot Smith-like 'Something to Talk About'.

The Funmaker sent this in:  “What I find most interesting about this weekend's box office is not the fact that Spider-Man held up amazingly well, and may become only the third movie to reach $400 million on its initial release, but the fact that The New Guy opened to more than $9 million. That's more than Sorority Boys, Slackers, Van Wilder, Saving Silverman, Say It Isn't So, Loser, Tomcats, Get Over It, Josie and the Pussycats, Summer Catch (have I missed any). In fact, besides the American Pie Movies, and the annual December teen movie that blows up (i.e. Dude Where's My car, Not Another Teen Movie), this is the highest grossing opening for a teen/young person's comedy since Road Trip and Bring It On. I find that pretty interesting considering the lack of teen stars, and the fact that this movie has been held up for over a year and dumped by its studio in the wake of Spider-Man. It's not that $9 million is such a spectacular opening, but the movie that did it is a bit of a shock. With a lame premise, cheesy parodies, and only mildly funny trailers, this movie should turn a decent profit in a time when even some of the cheapest (by studio standards) of these movies consistently appear to lose money (I don't know the revenue streams nearly as well as you).  I'm sure the Spider-Man numbers and Richard Gere's biggest solo debut (without an undoubdetly bigger star) are much more newsworthy, but this is the tidbit I pulled out of the weekend numbers that I found the most interesting and offbeat.”

 

E ME:  Wazzzzz Uppppppp?!?!!?