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One of Gothamist's favorite movie columnists, Jeffrey Wells at Movie Poop Shoot, went to the Santa Barbara Film Festival and comes back with an interesting take on three of the discussion panels he attended (about screenwriting, directing, and producing). He notes an excellent exchange about the brilliant Reese Witherspoon-Matthew Broderick film, Election, during a panel about producing, which included producers of 21 Grams, Monster, Lord of the Rings, The Station Agent, and Cold Mountain, moderated by Variety's editor in chief, Peter Bart:
Bart knows just how to moderate these things. He jumps right in and sasses everything up and sort-of goads the panelists into talking straight and spilling the beans, mainly by setting an example.
When [Cold Mountain producer Albert] Berger referred to Paramount's distribution of ELECTION, which Berger and six others produced (or exec produced), Bart said ELECTION was one of the worst marketed films ever. "But Paramount did produce it," Berger said, to which Bart replied, "Accidents happen."
[Monster producer Clark] Peterson half-scored when he said "if you want to get into the movie business but you don't have any special talent or ability, become a producer."
Our votes for the worst marketed studio films in recent history go to L.A. Confidential, Rushmore, and The Good Thief. Gothamist, in pre-Gothamist days, once wrote to Jeffrey Wells (in his pre-Movie Poop Shoot days) about Andrew Sarris, our favorite film critic.
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While I agree that THE GOOD THIEF, RUSHMORE and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL could have done with better minds in their studios' respective marketing departments, I'd have to say the worst marketed studio film in recent memory is easily A LITTLE PRINCESS (1995), Alfonso Cuaron's magical adaptation of the F.H. Burnett novel (brilliantly done - easily one of its decade's best films - and far superior to the Harry Potter movies IMHO).
PRINCESS takes the prize since it had two theatrical campaigns, both abysmal. Warners, which tanked with its early summer release of PRINCESS, tried again in the fall of '95 by "prestiging up" its cheapjack "kiddie" ad camapign, but to no avail. The film flopped as badly as during its initial run, despite some of the most stellar reviews that a non-Disney family film had received in years.
Yes, Paramount took flack in 1999 for tossing out the arty ELECTION like any other feature "from MTV Films" (which I think was part of its undoing -- Paramount leaned a bit too much on the auto-pilot lever thanks to that unfortunate imprimatur), but Warners' PRINCESS failure is unmatched for its notoriety in Hollywood studio marketing circles.
-kbc
since i cant comment on this anywhere else:
Danielle Romano=HOTT
That JLo/Clooney film Out of Time was quite good and horribly marketed. you could say the same about Fight Club as well.
If you like Sarris, don't miss the DVD of Sunset Blvd.
Agree with Rushmore. How would/could you have done it differently?
Bottle Rocket was also a horrible marketing miss.