Summit Gets Game
I wonder what persuaded CAA, River Road Entertainment, Participant Media and Imagenation Abu Dhabi to cut a deal for Summit Entertainment to distribute Doug Liman‘s Fair Game? Favorable financial terms, I’m sure, as well as a strong p & a commitment and a promise of marketing vigor when it opens. I for one would have had second thoughts in view of Summit’s half-hearted track record with The Hurt Locker, and to a lesser extent The Ghost Writer.
The bottom-line impression (as opposed to whatever the reality may be) is that while Summit is proficient with Oscar campaigns, they haven’t been that tenacious with their theatrical releases. They seemed awfully hesitant when it came to the distributing of The Hurt Locker, taking forever to commit to a release date after picking it up at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, and then distributing it half-heartedly when it opened in June 2009, barely acquainting moviegoers with the name and the subject before turning tail and running for cover when the initial theatrical revenues proved disappointing. I recognize that The Ghost Writer was never going to do huge business due to its lack of Eloi selling points, but I don’t remember Summit doing all that much to remind Average Joes in print and online ads that it was unmistakably the first high-quality film of 2010. Okay, they may have “said” this in ads, but not in a way that made much of an impression on me.
You probably had more to do with Hurt Locker’s year long traction heading toward the Oscars than Summit, though they did tour the talent, screenwriter, etc. But Iraq War dramas do no sell, have not sold, and won’t sell. Americans don’t want to see them.
Summit made a good faith effort, I thought, to sell Ghost Writer. Pitched interviews with Ewan and Pierce B., got the word out, but the movie never drew an audience even in NYC. Another hard sell.
If it isn’t Twilight (a fluke), they do seem to struggle. They should be stealing marketers from Fox.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure THL and TGW were never really going to sell many more tickets than they already did. Hard to blame the distributor and the marketing in this case — both of those were just extremely hard sells to the Eloi in the modern film climate.
There certainly has been a lot of Fair Game coverage on this site lately — are we really certain that it’s even going to be a good movie, let alone an Oscar contender? The Watts/Penn pairing certainly promises to deliver a duo of dynamic performances — and more interesting chemistry a la 21 Grams — but what is it about the behind-the-cameras talent here that engenders your trust, exactly?
Liman hasn’t touched anything worth a shit in about 8 years (Sorry Lex, but Jumper was not a GOOD MOVIE), and in retrospect I’d definitely say that his first Bourne movie — while it effectively got the ball rolling on the series — is pretty clearly the weakest of the three. I don’t really recognize the screenwriters, either — not necessarily a bad thing — it just really makes me wonder if this isn’t one of those numerous Emperor’s New Prestige Pics that get dumped on the public every autumn. I guess we’ll find out soon enough when it screens at Cannes.
Totally unrelated, but we were talking about movies that use the same titles in another thread. I just watched a trailer for Wesley Snipes’ Game of Death, fully expecting it to be a remake (and one of the few that didn’t immediately sound like an awful idea, IMHO). Nope. Just looks like an early-’90s standard issue, Boiling Point-esque thriller…with Robert Davi, no less! These are all good things, IMHO, it’s just funny to me that Snipes stupidly tax-exiles himself for YEARS. When he finally comes back, he doesn’t really miss a beat, picking up exactly where he left off making familiar genre pics like this and Brooklyn’s Finest.
You really telling me you couldn’t find another title besides Game of Death, though?
I was under the impression that The Ghost Writer did pretty decent business for a semi-limited-release sort of picture (albeit one with potential mainstream appeal as it’s not exactly the most obscure/arty thriller, and it has some recognizable if not very bankable faces). OtownRog, it was selling out a lot of shows in the NYC area for at least its first couple of weekends, and in fact lasted at the Union Square theater for several months, so I’m puzzled by your “not even in NYC” comment. The way it’s going now, Ghost Writer will top out around $16-17 million. Not bad, I’d say. (Though Mojo says it cost around $45 million?! OK, a little bit of yikes there. But Summit probably just has to cover the US P&A.) Seems like it’s hard to squeeze much more out of a movie without a massive ad campaign/big release pattern, unless it’s a pretty major crowd-pleaser and not “just” a well-made and very satisfying little thriller.
I’d say the Liman Bourne is actually the best of the three. Maybe that’s due more to the novelty of the story than Liman’s direction, but I never really understood the crazy praise for Greengrass’s Bourne movies, which are well-made and enjoyable but almost exactly the same obvious, not particularly nuanced story, which is not a story as interesting as the first film. Liman is also somewhat less in love with shots of big control rooms with a bunch of anonymous guys and girls on headsets, so that’s a plus. I mean, the Bourne movies don’t really say anything; they’re supposed to be fun, right? The first one is the most fun.
But, yeah, it was also the last time Liman made a truly good movie, and even the first Bourne isn’t really up to the Swingers/Go standard. As an action-movie one-off, it would be impressive, but somehow the Bourne experience seems to have tricked Liman into thinking he wants to make that type of movie (even Fair Game sounds like a more developed version of Bourne’s “serious” side, though obviously it’s aiming a bit higher).
That said, CitizenKaned, Swingers and Go are really damn good; that’s what interests me in whatever Liman is up to.
“(even Fair Game sounds like a more developed version of Bourne’s “serious” side, though obviously it’s aiming a bit higher).”
My thoughts exactly. I actually love his first two films — well, I didn’t technically see Getting In, so whatever — but I think it’s hard not to give Favreau his fair share of credit for Swingers. Go‘s a damn kinetic piece of filmmaking, though, and Liman’s a big reason why. Yeah, it does crib a lot of the structure, pacing, and quirky character beats from Pulp Fiction, but that certainly doesn’t stop it from being a minor masterpiece, IMHO.
Summit, eh?
Guys this will have that woody PURPLE sheen.
Do all studios have their own lab where some guy goes “Give it the Lionsgate sheen” or “Make it Fox yellow” or “Make it Universal comedy pastel” or “Make it WB blue.”
Maybe it’s just, again, my high-powered telecine trained cat eyes, but from Twilight to Ghost Writer to Furry Vengeance to Remember Me, every Summit movie has the same tinted purple sheen. Or at least their trailers do.
Liman isn’t really a purple director, he’s a red and black director who goes yellow when he works for Fox.
We’ll see. By the way, stupid question:
Is this thing even SHOT yet? Jeff has a new thread about it daily, but there’s no trailer, is there? From IMDB, it’s hard to tell if they’re even done filming it yet. I thought it was coming out any week now the way Jeff talks it up and the way Big Hollywood is bracing for it… But it’s just now finding a studio? So it’s possibly seven months away?
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I swear, I’m more Republican than I should ever admit on Wells’s site (aside from all that religious idiocy and family values BULLSHIT)…
But John Nolte is seriously THE WORST AMERICAN EVER, and his fanbase consists of THE DUMBEST PEOPLE EVER TO HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET.
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/04/30/let-the-leftist-entertainment-medias-fair-game-water-carrying-begin/
but somehow the Bourne experience seems to have tricked Liman into thinking he wants to make that type of movie (even Fair Game sounds like a more developed version of Bourne’s “serious” side, though obviously it’s aiming a bit higher). mouse trap
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