The goal in a limited release is to pick and choose the cities the movie will show in in order to maximize it’s profits. As an example if somebody was making a movie about how wonderful gay parents were they might open the film in San Francisco and New York. After a limited release movie does well in the targeted cities the company releasing it can then go to other theaters and say, “This movie is making X amount of dollars per screen. You should show it too!”
That was the plan with The Undefeated. The marketing company picked fairly large market, fairly conservative cities to open in on the assumption that the film would do best there for an initial roll out. The problem is the movie tanked. Any way you slice it. It tanked.
What makes you think he picked that method? Maybe he was forced, because the theaters wouldn’t book it.
The major flaw in their theatrical release strategy so far (IMHO) has been in the TIMING of their new showings.
We had THREE WEEKS notice before the grand opening in Orange, CA.
And, we had roughly 250 people at the 5 pm show, and 300 (sold out!) at the 7 pm show.
We had THREE DAYS notice before the opening one week later in Ontario, CA — about 75 miles away.
And, we had roughly 10 people at the 6 pm show, and 20 at the 8 pm show.
Same movie. Similar part of the country. Similar demographics/political breakdown.
Hmmm. I wonder if there is any connection between ADVANCE NOTICE and ATTENDANCE. ;)
If they’re not going to ADVERTISE the damn things, they will have to give us MUCH MORE TIME — to get the word out through “non-traditional” channels.
opened up as the 15th best politcal documentary is not tanking.
So what did you take away from viewing the documentary? Too many empty seats?
I hope it shows in Greenville, SC...would like to see it on the big screen.