‘Once’ isn’t enough: Film gets marketing push
Once is getting a second wind.
The Romeo and Juliet-style romance about two star-crossed musicians has been maintaining strong ticket sales since May, amid a season of one-weekend wonders.
Once is now attempting to expand on its art-house accomplishments and find a broader audience, after also catching the attention of the stars’ musical and filmmaking heroes, Bob Dylan and Steven Spielberg.
Playing in 140 theaters, Once has earned $6.5 million รณ tiny compared with studio blockbusters playing on thousands of screens, but huge considering its creators thought they’d be selling the movie, which cost a mere $150,000, only at their concerts.
Distributor Fox Searchlight has a new advertising push, while stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are on a seven-city tour with appearances last week on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and a live concert on National Public Radio.
Hansard, frontman for the band The Frames, has dreamed about this kind of exposure his whole life.
“If you flirt with success, don’t be surprised if it offers you sex,” Hansard jokes. “To be honest, I’ve spent the past weeks trying to make sense of all this.”
They are beginning a low-key Oscar campaign for the original songs, with screenings and performances for Los Angeles’ Society of Composers and Lyricists and other Hollywood award-season voters.
Once, written and directed by John Carney, is the story of an Irish singer/songwriter (Hansard) who finds a muse in a Czech flower seller and aspiring pianist (Irglova) he meets on the streets of Dublin.
The film has been praised as a kind of natural musical, loaded with songs by the musicians who play together in real life under the name The Swell Season.
The film has been seen by some of their idols: Spielberg said Monday, “A little movie called Once gave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year.”
Also, Hansard credits Once with getting The Frames an invitation to open for Dylan’s upcoming Australian tour, and he and Irglova were asked to do a cover version of Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere for the soundtrack of I’m Not There, a reality-bending Dylan biopic.
“It is such a great boost for us,” says Irglova. “We’ve been playing that song together for years.”
There are no plans for a Once sequel, but Hansard says the pair has been creating new music throughout the experience: “It’s been good ground for growing ideas.”
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