ADVANCE FILM REVIEWS IN CRITICAL CONDITION
How do you keep a movie from being savaged by the critics? Don’t let them see it.
Fuhgeddaboud opening-day reviews for two new movies this weekend, “Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion” or the animated feature “Doogal.”
“We are not going to spend $50,000 for the privilege of negative reviews for a film that isn’t going to be affected by them,” Tom Ortenberg, president of “Madea” distributor Lionsgate, told The Post.
“Doogal” and “Madea” are joining a growing number of wide releases that are skipping the customary critics’ screenings, much to the dismay of consumers looking for opening-day guidance.
That makes eight so far this year, compared with seven in all of 2005, by The New York Post’s count.
“It’s a pure business decision,” says analyst Gitesh Pandya of boxofficeguru.com. “They’re realizing that for films which the critics will hate anyway, it’s just not worth going through the trouble and expense of setting up screenings in cities around the country.”
In the past, a typical nonscreened movie was a studio mistake dumped to satisfy contractual obligations. Now, nonscreening is more often part of a conscious marketing policy, particularly flicks aimed at teens.
“These kids aren’t reading reviews, so these movies are essentially bulletproof,” says one former studio publicist.
“Sometimes a director or a star refuses to believe how bad a movie is [think “Gigli”], so they pressure the studio into screening it,” Pandya says
Presumably, Oscar-winner Charlize Theron, for example, had no problem with Paramount opening “Aeon Flux” without screenings.
As far as “Doogal,” The Weinstein Company claims the film √≥ a British-French co-production that opened to blah reviews overseas and has been retooled for the American market with a new voice cast √≥ wasn’t ready in time to screen.
Ortenberg is more blunt about why there were no screenings for “Madea,” a follow-up to Perry’s “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” which grossed $26 million in its opening weekend on its way to a $50 million gross last year √≥ despite awful reviews.
Although his research and exit polls for “Diary” and “Madea” had more than 95 percent of the crowds rate the films excellent or very good, Ortenberg says of the new “Madea,” “our hunch is that critics will have pretty much the same opinion they did of ‘Diary.’ ”
Ortenberg concedes it’s a “tough decision” to skip screenings. But in this case, he says, “the money for screenings will be better spent on more advertising.”
“For most movies, reviews are an important part of the overall release strategy,” the film executive admits.
I think Ortenberg is right about that √≥ studios such as Lionsgate are always going to want critical support for movies like “Crash,” so skipping screenings is unlikely to become the norm.
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