Ranting On...the Idiocy of Film Release Schedules

Have you seen this movie?

I live in the Midwest, but I love movies and write a blog about them.  Every year this becomes a bit of a problem, as the Oscar season has a weirdly stilted structure to the way that people see the movies.  For some reason they premiere all of the films on the coasts, then expand to a couple of key markets (perhaps San Francisco and Chicago), then to maybe 20-25 major urban markets (this is where my Minneapolis grabs a showing in 1-2 theaters), and finally, if the film is a big enough hit come nomination morning, they may expand it into a series of additional theaters.  This has been going on for years, but I have to tell you-it feels far more exaggerated and idiotic this year, with movies like Wild, The Imitation Game, The Homesman, and Foxcatcher potentially costing themselves millions by going theater-by-theater, risking all of their solid buzz by not quickly expanding.  It's something that clearly has to stop, not only for film-lovers but for theater-owners who are missing out on revenue from prestige and adult dramas.

The reason that this schedule occurs is, of course, that studios tend to think in a way that worked fifteen years ago, before Twitter and Facebook and countless internet sites made reactions to films and entertainment instantaneous.  It used to be that you had to build a buzz around something like, say, Shine or Sling Blade.  These were great movies and ones that could resonate with the public, but how do you get someone to see a film with no special effects, difficult plots, and no major stars?  You stagger it, and let the word of mouth of the NY and LA critics start to trickle to Middle America.  They hear these are major Oscar contenders, films that are "important" and that you need to see, and then when the films do limited engagement in smaller, less-coastal cities, people flock to them, wanting to gain access to the conversation that is happening, and there's a trickle down effect as the films go to smaller and smaller markets based on this continuing conversation.

However, this isn't how people access entertainment any longer.  In the era of the live-blog and the live-tweet, we don't need buzz for something like Shine to build.  We'd hear instantly on Twitter how this is a major Best Picture contender.  Buzzfeed would do a list of "The Places You've Seen Armin Mueller-Stahl Before."  You'd see Tumblr gif's everywhere of Geoffrey Rush prancing and playing the piano.  The trailer would get a million hits on YouTube.  Everyone in America (or at least the cinematically aware America) would be wanting to see this film, excited to be a part of the quick-growing trend.

And yet, the studios make us wait.  I've been waiting for Foxcatcher so long now I feel like I've seen it.  The Imitation Game has been marketed for months in my local AMC theater, and yet it still isn't here yet, despite one of my coworkers coming to talk about how he saw it last week in New York; my coworker is not a critic or a movie star, he just bought a ticket.  That's a few weeks difference, and in a world where it is increasingly easy to access friends from across the country and planet, it makes little sense to hold back on a screening just because of an outdated release schedule.

What's worse is that cinema is reacting to this much slower than its frenemy television.  TV has an inherent advantage in this game because it actually is live for everyone (well, West Coast tape delays, but close enough).  You can have an event like yesterday's Peter Pan where everyone is watching it all around Twitter.  You can instantly text your friends while gaping in shock about the latest death on Sons of Anarchy or how you have a "may need therapy" crush on Dandy Mott in American Horror Story.  It says something that even the music industry is reacting to the way that people buy their music (that is, people who do buy music); in an era where singles, rather than albums, are the way that people want their music, they make the first single easier to buy on iTunes the second that it starts getting radio play, even if the album isn't quite out or finished yet.

But truly what the worst part of this year's problem is isn't that this is an outdated mold (it is), it's that unlike Shine, these movies probably would have opened just fine had you gone wide initially, regardless of Twitter or Facebook or Reddit pushing the movies.  The Imitation Game has been gaining buzz for months and stars up-and-coming Benedict Cumberbatch plus worldwide known commodity Keira Knightley.  It doesn't need three more weeks of lounging on the Lower East Side to build its buzz-it's at peak now, and would have opened incredibly well.  Wild doesn't need Oscar buzz, even though it's also had it for months-it's based on an extremely popular memoir and stars one of the planet's biggest movie stars, Reese Witherspoon.  Those two factors alone, coupled with strong reviews, would have likely gotten the film a $25 million opening if they'd just gone properly wide.  There's nothing in theaters right now except way-too-many showings of Mockingjay and Dumb and Dumber To.  Even films like The Homesman and Foxcatcher have known (if not quite as bankable as Witherspoon) stars and considering the dearth of adult fare at the Box Office right now, probably would have done very well with a wide release.

And that's the final note I want to trumpet: adults go to the movies too.  One of the biggest hits of the year, and thank god for it, was Gone Girl.  I may not have loved the movie, but I can admire a stylish thriller made for adults without a lot of effects or pandering to get 13-18-year-old males into the seats.  And it was a huge hit, because adults are starving for entertainment too, and we don't just want animated films, comic book movies, slasher flicks, and gross-out comedies.  We would like some adult dramas, and when quality adult dramas go wide, they inevitably gross a fortune (look no further than Gone Girl).  Wild in particular irks me in this regard because Wild is basically the same thing as Gone Girl: celebrated novel (check), bankable movie star (Affleck/Reese, check check), and Best Actress buzz, plus a lot of conversation to be had after the movie (both oddly starting with "why did she do it?").  The music industry gets this (look at the way that someone like Barbra Streisand can still have a number one album in 2014).  The television industry surely gets it (shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Veep are huge successes with no thought given to making the shows likable to children).  But for some reason the movie industry doesn't get that they have the theaters (at least for a while) to still be able to counter-program successfully and make a fortune while doing it.  Hopefully they learn this lesson soon, as they make a whole lot less money when people throw their hands up in the air and just add something like Wild to their Netflix queue rather than checking each week to see if it's finally in their theater.