What’s the deal with the Wackness backlash?
I’ve been trying to figure out what is behind this push by some bloggers in the movie community to pile on Sony Classics as a result of their buying The Wackness at Sundance. This movement, summed up nicely by Cinematical, seems to be centered around the idea that Sony’s specialty arm will absolutely muck up the marketing and distribution of the movie, resulting in it never being seen by a wide audience.
And we’re basing this on what exactly?
I get that right now Fox Searchlight is seen by many (including, to be honest, me) as probably the best of the minor majors, meaning specialty arms of major studios. They’re having a really good streak right now that includes Once, The Savages, Juno, Waitress and The Darjeeling Limited. You could even stretch back to Little Miss Sunshine and others if you wanted to.
But what exactly has Sony Classics fouled up? I’m not sure why this movie in particular is causing such outrage. I hear that people think it won’t give the movie the support it needs but isn’t that true of about 90 percent of the independent films out there?
There are so many movies – from a wide swath of studios – that don’t get the advertising support they need. (I’ll save you all from another round of “engage, don’t advertise but assume that it would go here.) I don’t think Sony Classics is exactly alone in this and I don’t think their marketing of The Wackness will be any different from previous efforts.
So let’s settle down and be a little more constructive in how we think Sony Classics could do a good job of promoting The Wackness instead of lamenting their eventual winning of the rights to distribute the movie.
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Comments
Chris,
Just to reiterate slightly on Alex’s post, SPC does not have a good track record of spending serious money to market and promote the movies they pick up and release. One can even go back earlier than the two year timeframe mentioned to see this. Hey, it’s great that they will pick up indies that others won’t… at least they will get a release and not be fated with sitting in another specialty arm’s film vault, unreleased. But as one of the co-presidents of SPC said, their goal is to hit singles and doubles, not homeruns. And because that’s their agenda AND business model, they will not spend the kind of money that Fox Searchlight will.
The only way they will, is if the movie catches fire on their smaller budget. If it doesn’t, then it will be the single/double that SPC envisioned when they picked the movie up. I haven’t seen “Wackness” yet, but it’s unlikely to have the fate of “Juno” unfortunately. Hopefully I’ll be wrong on that.
I feel a lot of the above comments aren’t entirely fair
nor even accurate for that matter. I seem to remember
‘The Lives of Others’ was released by Sony Classics
last year and went on to make over 11million dollars,
the highest grossing German film of all time. Black Book
made over 4.4 million last year. If you add those 2 titles
together we are way over the above $6.5 million dollar estimation
of Sony’s movies from 2007. Additionally ‘Friends
with money’ is another sony classics released less
than 2 years ago with UNfavorable reviews and went
on to make over 13 million dollars. And those 3 are
just off the top of my head. Also, lets face it
Fox SearchL is NOT an independent film company.
They are paramount or warner bros but the movie
doesn’t have a corny ending. Fox SL does not take
the chances that sony classics does and frankly, it
has a fiercely higher marketing budget because
it ISN’T truly independent cinema. Sony Classics
cannot afford the cream of the crop like Fox SL or
other studios but I think it does ok a fair percent of
the time. My Kid Could Paint that was a bit of a mystery.
It was a great film that no one saw and I dont know where
to chalk that one up. Although it really isn’t a film you
HAVE to see on the big screen, yes? As for Youth Without Youth, frankly,
it was unwatchable and with movies of a certain budget
word of mouth is the most important thing since truly
independent films cannot afford a full page spread in
The New York Times. Incidentally, Persepolis (another
sony classics release) has had some of the highest
per screen averages and is halfway into the 2 million
mark (and probably not even 1/3 of the way to where it
will go) and that is an animated foreign film; not exactly
traditional box office gold.. IF the Wackness is that good, it
will be seen one way or another by intelligent people interested
enough to see it. Lets remember movies like ‘Meet the Spartans’
is where mass interest lies and there is nothing we can do
about that. Most likely it will open against “Epic Movie 2″
and get buried . Hopefully 5 weeks after the opening
it is still around but that will be word of mouth which is the
strongest marketing tool and really can’t be controlled by
any studio, regardless of it’s size.
Here, Chris, let me explain… This is Alex from FirstShowing – my article on the Wackness debacle is here.
So there are two parts to this issue. First, is that since all of us loved this film so much and are a huge supporter of it, we are fighting for it to get extra emphasis. You made a point about 90% of indie movies don’t get the studio support they need. Well, because we loved Wackness so much, we WANT it to be in that 10% that DOES and are fighting teeth and nail to get it there. I could even call it the beloved Sundance 2008 movie (it even won the coveted Audience Award) and that’s the primary reason we’re fighting.
Now to the point as to why Sony Pictures Classics “sucks”. Case in point, I agree with you that there’s not much we can do to reverse it and instead would like to work with SPC to try and get it promoted, but that doesn’t mean we can publicly protest it right now.
SlashFilm and Film School Rejects sum it up nicely. We want Wackness to be a big hit, and big means anywhere from box office earnings of $50 – $100 million+. Juno is big, and it just passed $100 m. Here’s where we get into SPC details.
After doing research, NO film in the past two years has made over $15 million in their entire theatrical release. That’s a bit pitiful. Then you also add in the statistic that the nine films which were released theatrically last year by Sony Pictures Classics made a grand total of $6.5 million. That’s it?! They probably paid $1-2 million for Wackness and from the sounds of it and the current stats, it’s not going to make over $10, if even.
THAT is why we’re concerned for Wackness. We want it to do very well and be a big hit, BUT SPC doesn’t know how to market well and it’s proven by their pitiful stats from the last few years. Does that help clarify?