CMT Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Look out, America: The country music stars are coming! Both Tim McGraw (Flicka) and Toby Keith (Broken Bridges) have movies coming out this fall, and Paramount Classics is planning to sell the hell out of Keith and his film. According to this morning's Variety, Paramount is teaming with Ford Trucks (which is sponsoring the whole thing), Big Screen Concerts and CMT Films for a big fancy world premiere on September 7.

For the small fee of $12.50, fans in about 100 cities (as well as soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, who one assumes will get in for free) will get to see a special screening of the film, preceded by a 30-minute feature consisting of "taped performances by Keith and his co-star Lindsey Haun" and red-carpet interviews with Keith, Kelly Preston, Willie Nelson, Burt Reynolds, as well as other cast members. (The red carpet is outside a theater in Tennessee, where I guess the movie is being show. Or maybe they're all going to see a concert -- is Madonna playing Nashville?)

While this fan-friendly premiere successfully targets Keith's current audience, one wonders how necessary it actually is -- won't his fans go see the movie, even without all these bells and whistles?

NASCAR fans are looking at an embarrassment of cinematic riches these days, what with the recent release of Cars and the looming arrival of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and the (admittedly smallish, but it's better than nothing, right?) wave of films shows no signs of slowing down. In addition to the upcoming Richard Petty biopic (starring one of the Quaid brothers), fans now have a Dale Earnhardt documentary to look forward to. CMT Films and NASCAR Images recently announced their intention to collaborate on the doc, entitled Dale, which is being made with the full cooperation of Earnhardt's family and is expected to include "archival race footage, rare outtakes, never-before-seen home videos and interviews with [his] friends, family, competitors and fans."

What is most interesting about Dale, however, is its planned release structure. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie will hit theaters next February, but only those in cities on the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series circuit. Perhaps inspired by the recent world premiere of Cars at a racetrack, CMT's vice-president of programing indicated that the film's debut in each city will not be a typical, quiet appearance in a local theater. Instead, CMT's goal is to "create an event atmosphere more like a live concert than a traditional movie screening." After that limited theatrical exposure, Dale will air on CMT in the fall, followed by a DVD release.