2929 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I guess it's been a while since Elephant -- time for another movie about a school shooting, right? Luckily, we've got Bloom to fit the bill. Based on Laura Kasischke's novel The Life Before Her Eyes, the movie will be directed by Vadim Perelman (of House of Sand and Fog fame) and tells a story Variety describes as that of "a woman whose idyllic life crumbles when she survives a shooting spree at a school." Reading about the book at Amazon, however, reveals more details about the plot, and makes the whole thing sound a whole lot more disturbing. Assuming the movie follows the book's plot fairly closely, it will show the woman (to be played as an adult by Uma Thurman) as a teenager surviving the shooting -- but she survives it only because one of the killers decides to kill her friend instead of her. The story then jumps forward two decades into the woman's great adult life. Needless to say, things are not as blissful as they seem, especially when the flashbacks start.

I wonder how they're going to tell this story in the movie -- it's hard to imagine a thriller (which is what production company 2929 is calling the film) getting its suspense entirely from flashbacks, though I suppose if the movie starts in the present day and everything about the shooting is a surprise, that could build some tension. Filming starts this summer, so we should see how Perelman handles the story sometime in 2007.

According to director Alex Steyermark, day-and-date releasing (or something close to it) is totally cool -- "just not for his film." Steyermark, whose One Last Thing ... is being theatrically released by Mark Cuban's Magnolia Pictures on May 5, is concerned that his film's television and DVD debuts (on May 19 and 23, respectively) will come too soon for necessary interest in the project to build. Despite the fact that he knew from day one that a day-and-date release was possible, Steyermark spent a lot of time last week complaining to The Hollywood Reporter about the situation, and (in a hilarious way, of course) described it as "day-and-date rape."

One Last Thing ... is Steyermark's second directorial effort (his first, Prey for Rock and Roll, starred Gina Gershon and Lori Petty), and tells the story of "a terminally ill teen who makes a provocative final wish." Starring Will & Grace's Michael Angarano as the kid and Cynthia Nixon as his mom (Gershon and Ethan Hawke also appear, among others), the film played at Toronto last fall where it received mixed reviews, but it has a great rating on the IMDb. Steyermark's bellyaching aside, his film is expect to hit screens in about 25 different markets on May 5.

Karina reported a while back that Starbucks had gotten into the movie industry (and not just in the form of Tom Hanks movies with the word "Starbucks" in the title) with a production credit for Lionsgate and 2929's Akeelah and the Bee. And, now that the film's release is imminent, Starbucks is initiating phase two of its involvement: beating customers over the head with the movie. Woo hoo! So, starting Tuesday, expect to see a whole lot of Akeelah and the Bee-related stuff going on at your local Starbucks. Don't worry, though: according to company executives, the marketing will be "much classier and more upscale than the average fast-food chain movie promotion." (This is a good thing? I was counting on a Laurence Fishburne toy with my latte, dammit.)

Apart from dissing fast food-style promotions, however, the people at Starbucks aren't offering many details about what their classy technique will entail. Basically, all we know that words from the movie (the "bee" in the title, by the way, refers to a spelling bee, not the buzzing kind) will show up on cups, and those oh-it's-too-hot sleeves. Oh, and that when you go to get coffee tomorrow, you "will be invited to step inside Akeelah's journey." Oh boy, a journey! Thanks, Starbucks.

Despite the insistence of theater owners that the multi-platform "super release" of Bubble was a complete disaster, 2929 is trying again with another niche film. Magnolia Pictures (a company that is under the 2929 umbrella) will release Herbie Hancock: Possibilities in theaters (just NY and LA) on April 14 and have it out on DVD four days later; the movie will air on Mark Cuban's HDNet TV channel on April 23. The film is a documentary that both explores Hancock's past and offers a detailed look at the recording of his most recent album on which folks like Sting, Annie Lennox, and Christina Aguilera appear.

While this film and its release schedule seems likely to affect only a tiny group of people (who, admittedly, will be incredibly happy), the small audience isn't a problem for 2929. According to Magnolia's VP of home entertainment Randy Wells, despite Bubble's "failure" at the box office, the total take from the theatrical and DVD sales, combined with PPV income, was about $5 million. Though that number is small compared to the profits pulled in by major studio releases, it's a huge success when one considers that the movie only cost about $1.5 million to make. Additionally, Wells maintains that releasing films on DVD and PPV or cable while they're still in theaters dramatically reduces advertising costs because the various releases can "draft" off of one another's hype.

After months and months of buildup to its multi-platform release, Steven Soderbergh's Bubble opened in 32 theaters. And, on that all-important, buzz-filled first weekend, it made just $70,664. Ouch. Though of course Mark Cuban, whose 2929 Entertainment is behind the DVD/HD/theater release technique, tried to convince anyone who would listen that the low returns were of little consequence, theater owners clearly felt otherwise. In fact, they were so sure that the $70,664 spelled disaster for the entire simultaneous release concept that they actually released a public statement, crowing over the movie's failure. Yeah, that's classy. John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, just wanted to make sure everyone knew that "the movie has performed very poorly," even with all of the free publicity granted it by the press. In other words, "Suck it, Cuban!"

 

Steven Soderbergh – who shot to fame 17 years ago, when sex, lies and videotape took the 1989 Sundance Film Festival by storm – won a Best Director Oscar for Traffic and immediately used his newfound Hollywood clout to cast George Clooney in a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. That didn't turn out so great, and some of us – well, okay, probably just me – spent one or two sleepless nights worrying about Steven Soderbergh's career. Though he'd surely never speak to it, perhaps Soderbergh was worried, too, because after the lackluster reception to 2004's Ocean's 12, he went out looking for a kick in the ass. So let's get the business part out of the way: Bubble is the first of six films that the director plans to make, on high def video at a budget of about $250,000 each, for Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment. 2929, in turn, plans to release all six films on DVD, in theaters, and on HD Net cable – simultaneously. Going in, it's hard to brush off the worry that the deal – and, particularly, its emphasis on technology and speed – might dictate, or at least influence, the way Soderbergh approaches his form and content. What's immediately striking about Bubble, however, is its apparent lack of desire to conform to ... anything. Bubble is not a commercial film, and as such, it in some ways seems like the ideal test case for 2929's simultaneous distribution gambit. If there's any film in today's marketplace that needs to blow its wad all at once to get noticed, it's this.