Two days ago I wrote about having “ignored the math” when I tapped out an 8.14 riff about the BFI London Film Festival showing of David Ayer‘s Fury (Sony, 10.17). The BFI calling the 10.19 LFF showing a “European premiere” means “that some U.S.-based festival will be also be showing the Brad Pitt-starring WWII combat film before it opens on 10.17,” I wrote. (L.A. Times columnist Steven Zeitchick came to the same conclusion on 8.14.)
Yesterday morning Variety critic Scott Foundas shared a little skepticism: “I wouldn’t get too hung up on that ‘European Premiere’ language,” he began. “Last year the London Film Festival kept calling Saving Mr. Banks a ‘European Premiere’ too, leading all of us at Variety to panic and think that surely it was going to have an official ‘world’ premiere somewhere else before, but in the end it didn’t. I was later told by someone at Disney that [the ‘European premiere’ stipulation] was done out of deference to the AFI Fest, which was then hosting the North American Premiere, so as to not make it seem like London was one-upping them too badly.