victor salva Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Universal is re-releasing Peaceful Warrior, an adaptation of Dan Millman's modestly titled book Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives, with a very interesting marketing campaign: They're giving away tickets for free. This is not the first time studios have tried such tactics, earlier this year teachers could see Hilary Swank's Freedom Writers free of charge for a week (Geez, don't teachers get enough perks with those fat paychecks?). Nearly the entire marketing campaign of the film is going into this ticket giveaway, upwards of $15 million dollars. It's a spiritual film, (see the oh-so subtle Christ implications in the picture to the right), so naturally Universal is partnering with Electronic Mecca Best Buy for the promotion. If you go to Best Buy's website from this Sunday to April 1st, you can get up to ten free tickets to the film, which returns to theaters on March 30th.

The film already received a limited release last summer by Lionsgate to poor reviews and a gross of $1.1 million, so why release it again? Universal rep Adam Fogelson says "Traditional marketing tactics will work for the majority of films, but there are going to be some films that are not going to work with them. This film, in my opinion, cannot be reduced to a 30-second spot." Really? Allow me to explain it in one sentence: "An athlete has a mystical experience after suffering a debilitating injury." It stars everyone's favorite spiritual leader Nick Nolte as Socrates, a "mysterious stranger with the power to tap into strength and understanding." (And, knowing Nolte, keg after keg of delicious booze.)

Most interesting to me is that this "spiritual" film that they want to "touch" as many viewers as possible was directed by Victor Salva, a convicted child molester. How does this man continue to get work? And doesn't anyone notice that he only directs films involving taut, scantily clad teenage boys? (Salva also did Powder, Jeepers Creepers and Jeepers Creepers 2) Hell, the plot outline of this movie on imdb is listed as: A chance encounter with a stranger changes the life of a college gymnast." Um, hello? Aren't there more qualified filmmakers out there who haven't, you know, molested people? They couldn't give away tickets to this thing! Oh, wait...

If you love genre films as much as I do then this announcement will make you as happy as it made me. According to Variety ( via Coming Soon), Joel Silver's Dark Castle Productions has raised $240 Million from a half-dozen Wall Street firms to produce 15 films over the next six years. Warner Bros. will distribute the films under an existing deal with Silver.

I wrote about Silver's dealings with Wall Street before, and its good to see those efforts bear fruit already with some new projects. First up for Silver and Dark Castle under this deal is the action thriller Whiteout, based on the Greg Rucka graphic novel about a lone U.S. marshal tracking Antarctica's first serial killer.

The next two projects after Whiteout are expected to be the psychological horror film The Summoner, directed by Victor Salva (who also directed the very scary Jeepers Creepers) and the urban action film Gangland, written by Alex Tse (who's also writing the adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen -- another pic I can't wait to see).

Dark Castle has been around since 1999 and in that time has turned out some pretty good genre films and some not so good ones. No matter what the relative merits and success of its films, it's good to see a company and a Producer like Joel Silver so committed to bringing these kinds of projects to the screen. If it wasn't for him we might never have had the guilty pleasure of seeing genre films like House on Haunted Hill, House of Wax, or the under-appreciated Gothika. Keep up the good work Joel, and I'll keep watching.

What's your favorite guilty pleasure genre movie?

Two friends of mine read Dan Millman's The Way of the Peaceful Warrior last year, and I could NOT get them to shut up about it. Something about a gymnast, and a man who taught him to live the right way, or something. When they told me about, it was clear that the book was heavy on philosophy - there was a lot of "You know...it's, like, about life. But way more than that!" in their descriptions, which didn't make it sound like a book that would lend itself to a screenplay. Little did I know, however, that it did so a long damn time ago - and that the movie has, in fact, already been made.

Over the years, the movie rights changed hands many times (they started with Mark Amin at Trimark) as small production houses broke up or were swallowed up, and as executives moved. In the middle of all the shuffling around, a deal was struck with Blockbuster (through DEJ Productions) to finance and distribute the film; that deal, in turn, got it greenlit. In post-production now, the movie - entitled Peaceful Warrior - was directed by Victor Salva (best known for Jeepers Creepers, oddly enough) and stars Scott Mechlowicz as Millman (the book is a "blend" of fact and fiction, with a central character who shares a name with its author) and Nick Nolte as Socrates, his mysterious teacher. When Blockbuster offloaded DEJ, they kept the distribution rights to Peaceful Warrior, which were just purchased by Lionsgate; the film will be in theaters in early June.