Today United 93 opens in theaters around the country after a pretty quiet lead in to the release. A few days back, the Chicago Tribune took a look at how this movie and another slated for release in August is being publicized.
This is a pretty interesting topic, considering how delicately this needs to be handled. With all the official fanfare of a made-for-TV movie, it's slipped into the national rotation and apparently will rely on word of mouth to either make or break the gate receipts.
In the hypothetical, "How would you handle this?" situation, there are really no great answers. Too little and your movie will suffocate. Too much and you risk public outcry and undercutting any goodwill or credibility you might have as a result of the film's merit. Tough call.
I guess because it's only been a few years since the attacks, things run the risk of getting out of hand. Release a movie with Leo and Kate on a sinking ship and it's an international hit. Release this and it's seen as "too soon" by some.
I'm not really passing judgement on this, but it'll be interesting to see the results of this film (with no major stars to my knowledge) and August's offering with Nicolas Cage, where he plays one of the last people to be pulled from the rubble. You can't really ignore the proximity to September either, regardless of when in August it comes out.
Either way, both are pretty ballsy moves.
No comments:
Post a Comment