Alice in Wonderland Controversy Still Going Strong

I think this whole story revolving around Tim Burton's Alice and Wonderland being given a truncated theatrical release in order to get it onto DVD quicker is fascinating, which means I'll post about it every time there is some new revelation which thickens the plot. Consider the plot thickened.

Hollywood Reporter is saying today that that Odeon in the U.K., who are responsible for over 100 theaters have boycotted Alice in Wonderland and will not be playing it in the U.K., Ireland and Italy (it will however play in Spain, Germany, Austria and Portugal, where it is scheduled for the regular 18 week run).

The reason for the boycott is because Odeon is saying that it has put considerable time and money into upgrading its facilities to accommodate 3D films and will therefore give precedence to those that plan on staying for a full run, probably because it is assumed that they will generate more revenue for the theaters.

Poor Alice in Wonderland. Even if the movie is no good, here it is sandwiched between it's distributor who is basically saying "It will make more money on home video so let's get it there as quick as possible," and the exhibitor saying, "We don't need it, we have more important films to show." All this because it was chosen to be the guinea pig in a strange and, what is looking to be, unsuccessful experiment.

Personally, I say good for the theaters. As someone who values the theatrical experience above all else, the idea that studios want to get movies through the exhibition process and straight into consumer hands as fast as possible is disturbing. Back when DVD sales started rising and box office receipts started dwindling, some pundits started saying that exhibition had simply become a preview for the DVD. Disney is bringing this statement one step closer to reality with this move.

I remember the controversy over Steven Soderberg's Bubble some years back which was released to theater, DVD and on-demand all within the span on several weeks. Theaters cried it would be the death of them and they may have been on to something had Bubble not been a small film that applied only to a specific niche market. However, Alice in Wonderland is supposed to be a big tentpole picture. It has a big name director, big stars, and comes from a classic story. To think that a movie like this will find more business on DVD than in theaters implies a sad fate for exhibition. Instead of cutting the theatrical run, why doesn't Disney roll out Alice in the classic mode: open it in select cities, see what the reaction is and then decide how long to play it for? Or else, let it play in 3D for the full 18 weeks while taking it off regular screens after 12 weeks and prepping the DVD. That way it can still play, theaters aren't sore about spending money to play 3D movies for shortened periods and the DVD can be in people's hands in a shorter time, while in the meantime those who still want to see it in 3D can.

The reaction from Odeon though also brings to light another fear I've had in recent years: there's just too many movies being made. George Lucas once said that multiplexes were great ideas because it would offer people the opportunity to see smaller films in big theaters alongside the big event pictures. Although I appreciate his optimism, and in some cases he has been right, in most cases the opposite has happened. Studios are scrambling to make more movies to ensure that every screen is filled with their product. Instead of one or two quality products from each studio, we now get mass amounts of prepackaged garbage every week. prepackaged garbage has always been part of the movie going reality, but there's more of it now than ever as studios try to make as much money with as many films in as short a time as possible. That a theater feels it doesn't need a big film like Alice in Wonderland in order to do good business means that studios, by mass producing movies, are, year after year, lowering the value of their own product, even the blockbusters.

This is unfortunate because it means that it's now easier than ever for good films to get lost in the shuffle. That seemed to have happened to Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant film with Nicholas Cage, which garnered excellent reviews but did next to no business. That's just one example.

So I'm glad the to hear that theaters are taking a stand and telling the studios that if they don't want to play ball, they'll play with someone else. What is unfortunate is that all of this comes at the expense of a film that might be good or bad, I don't know, but deserves just as fair a shot at success as any other. Could Alice in Wonderland fall victim to all this silly deal making? It'll be interesting to see whether studios or exhibitors will be making the next move.

To read my other posts on this matter click here and here.

It's the End of the Week

The great thing about still being a student is three day weekends. It's probably no surprise that I don't put much effort into weekend posts unless something big drops. There are some interesting things going on in the news that require a mention but not really a full post and since Mad Hatter and Encore Andrew (check them out for sure!) did posts today about other people's posts well, I've never come across a good idea I didn't want to adopt myself as well. So here goes:

/Film U.K. is reporting that the Alice in Wonderland controversy is starting already as three of the U.K.'s biggest theater chains are trying to boycott the film due to the truncated release window in order to get the film to DVD sooner. I've already done two posts on this issue so I won't repeat the story word for word but do read about it here. Also check out my past posts here and here.

/Film U.K. is also saying that Owen Wilson is trying to get his acting cred back after phoning it in with stuff like You, Me and Dupree, The Wedding Crashers and Drillbit Taylor (I liked Marley & Me, sue me). Not only does he have the upcoming Farrelly Bros. movie Hall Pass in the works (I've read it. It's funny), but he's also attached to James L. Brooks' next movie (although he hasn't made a truly great one since Broadcast News) and the new Woody Allen movie. That certainly offsets his involvement with Marmaduke and the next Meet the Parents movie. Now if only Vince Vaugh would follow suit.

Deadline Hollywood is saying that the trailer for the next Twilight film Eclipse will be debuting in front of Robert Pattinson's upcoming movie Remember Me, the trailer for which I happened to see before New Moon (clever, eh?). The trailer didn't really inspire me to want to see the movie. What else is curious is that Jenny "daughter or Sidney" Lumet's name has been taken off the IMDB page for the movie after she did work on the script. Although the Eclipse trailer may get the film a bigger audience than it would otherwise find, Little Ashes (remember that one?) didn't exactly prove that Pattinson had the star clout to open an original movie on his own.

I guess it was inevitable. Wes Craven begins work on Scream 4 in May. In other news surrounding sequels no one really wants, I just finished reading the third Riddick film. All I can say of it is: maybe Vin Diesel's return to XXX will be better.

Now I've seen just about everything. Once again, /Film U.K. has posted a trailer for an animated Bollywood film. The film is apparently a remake of a popular live-action Bollywood film and is the most expensive animated feature ever made in India. Check out the trailer below. Is it just me or is it kind of weird seeing animals talking and singing in Indian?

Shorter Theatrical Runs at Warners Too

A couple days ago I posted about how Disney is trying out some experimental ways in which to release their films, the first of which will be to truncate the theatrical run of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, which would mean taking the movie out of theaters roughly a month early in order to get it onto DVD and ondemand even faster. The question that plagued my mind about this is whether or not such a maneuver signals the beginning of the end for seeing movies theatrically, or is it just a nice roundabout way of saying that Alice in Wonderland is no good?

Now Hollywood Reporter is saying that Warner Bros. is also going to adopt the shortened theatrical run method too. Here's the scoop: Warner's is planning on doing the same thing to their fall movie Guardians of Ga'hoole (Zac Snyder's new animated film). The plan is to chop about a month off the initial run in order to have the product prepped for DVD and Blu-ray for Christmas. Similarly Disney is saying the reason for shortening Alice's run is so that it can be out on home video for summer.

What's also been revealed is that that studios have assured exhibitors that they will sweeten the deal by offering concessions on movies with shortened runs.

The studios have also promised that it will only do this to two movies a year: one in the spring and one in the fall. Of course, the exhibitors need to agree to take these movies out of theaters a month earlier than usual but really, what choice do they have? If they don't play ball with the studios, the studios won't schedule big movies for May and September, ultimately hurting theaters than to just let the movies go early.

Something about these developments fascinates me. What does it imply about the future of exhibition; the future of distribution; the future of home video; the future of the film industry in general? Will two movies a year do anything to help out stuggling studios, especially when they are movies that will probably make big money no matter how fast they get to DVD? I guess all we can do is wait and see whether or not all the majors will adopt this system or whether or not it will reveal itself as a failed transgression and be quickly forgotten.

Something`s Fishy in Wonderland

New Tim Burton films don`t excite me. He`s done some good work but, to be honest, I don`t think the man is a very good filmmaker. He`s an excellent decorator but a second rate storyteller, which means his films always end up feeling like hollow exercises in special effects and set design while the emotional crux of the stories take the back seat.

His approach to macabre subject matter doesn`t much interest me either. I get that he is making films about outsiders cast away from society, but his satiric vision of the everyday life which he juxtaposes his characters against is, in and of itself, so over-the-top that he`s not so much making a statement as making a misguided spectacle.

It should be no surprise then that, whether it`s good or not, I`m not really excited about Burton`s upcoming live-action-with-animation take of Alice in Wonderland which is set for release on March 5th in both 2D and 3D formats.

What does interest me though is that Hollywood Reporter is saying that Disney is planning on taking an experimental approach to releasing the movie. Apparently Disney has been toying with different ideas on how to release movies and now it is time to put one into practice. So the idea is that Disney is approaching exhibitors about shortening Alice`s run from roughly 16 weeks in first run theaters to around 13 or under. The reason for this is because Disney feels the film will be a big hit on DVD and ondemand services, so the quicker they can get it there the better.

What`s unclear at this moment is, if studio`s plan on adopting this method of distribution, how they plan on compensating theaters for shortening the runs of big films like Alice in Wonderland in order to push them onto DVD quicker. For theaters, shortened runs means less actual return from the studio on the film`s actual business and less physical traffic through the theater as people may be encouraged to simply wait for the DVD, which translates into less traffic through the theater`s concession stands, the place where most of an operation`s profits are derived.

Disney CEO Bob Iger has said that truncated runs could be a way to maximize the Disney`s bottom line, but I don`t quite buy it. Is this simply a sign that Disney has lost faith in Burton`s project and doesn`t believe it will perform. I can`t imagine the studio pulling something like this with one of their big projects like a Pixar or Pirates of the Caribbean film. Or is this one last desperate attempt by studios in hard times to keep people going out to the movies before everything except tentpole pictures and arthouse fare go more or less straight to video and ondemand.

It will be interesting to see how Burton, who began his career as an animator at Disney, will respond to his movie being the lab rat in such an experiment.