Chevalier gets slapped in front of Darjeeling

The short Hotel Chevalier will be in front of The Darjeeling Limited when it expands to hundreds more screens this weekend, reports The Hollywood Reporter. There’s much wank-ulation (speculation about wanking) in the story regarding this being a chance to catch Natalie Portman’s nude scene on the big screen.

But the real story is that this short, which was shot two years before Darjeeling and debuted as a free iTunes download, is finally getting released. This could provide a powerful incentive for people to decide to see the film, or see it again with the “whole” story now intact. I’m really quite glad they opted to go this route.

The New York Times story on the decision, which Karina linked to, says Searchlight is making the move based on a desire to position the short as an Oscar contender. She has the details on why this may or may not actually happen.

But Steve Bryant raises some interesting points that go beyond the already-addressed issues with this move. Chevalier’s success (at least among critics – I haven’t seen numbers of downloads) as a stand-alone short, he says, hasn’t exactly helped Darjeeling’s box-office to date. He then makes a statement that I completely agree with, that if the Darjeeling feature had been released online after Chevalier debuted the movie would likely have a great deal more money to it’s name than it does so far.

I don’t think this is a case study for online shorts or video promotional techniques or anything like that. Wes Anderson/Fox Searchlight had a short that was part of the story of the movie but didn’t feel it was wise to attach it to the movie in the first place. Instead they decided to give it away as a way to build buzz – and it achieved that goal, but it built buzz for the short, with little of that spilling over into the feature.

I’m not that surprised. This is little different from releasing a prequel comic or other tactic. Each product has to stand on its own feet and find its own audience. But it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Searchlight had followed Steve’s advice and released Darjeeling digitally at the same time it was released theatrically.