On Monday night, The Hollywood Reporter published a story questioning Focus Features’ marketing plan for Milk, Gus Van Sant’s biopic on the country’s first openly gay elected official who was famously assassinated by a colleague in the late 70s. The story suggested that by “keeping its awards contender out of fall fests and heavily restricting media screenings,” the studio is deliberately trying to avoid any kind of partisan publicity (positive or negative) that could damage the film from reaching a mainstream audience.
Focus chief James Schamus was, apparently, pretty upset by the story, particularly considering that it was timed to hit the web just under 24 hours before Milk’s premiere, a benefit screening at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. He’s written a letter to the editor of THR, which Eugene Hernandez posted on his blog last night before the Milk screening. The gist: Milk wasn’t ready in time for fall festivals, they don’t have enough prints yet to do widespread screening but they will, the entire internet has been going batshit crazy for the trailer (”probably the most inspiring piece of movie marketing about genuine (as well as out) politics ever created”) for over a month, and not only has Focus not avoided political attention but they’ve bought tons of ad space on The Huffington Post and NPR.
If the issue was whether or not Focus is actively trying to create “noise” around Milk, then Schamus’ defense seems solid enough to lead to the conclusion that THR got that part of the story wrong. But the issue might not be the quantity of noise, but the brand of noise.
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The Hollywood Reporter has details on Werner Herzog’s next project. Funded by Focus Features and described as Herzog’s “biggest English-language costume drama in more than four decades as a filmmaker,” it’s an adaptation of a novel called The Piano Tuner. Set in Burma, it’s about “a man sent to a remote village in the late 1800s to repair an eccentric military man’s piano.”
Herzog has always alternated between drama and documentary, but each flit back and forth between genres has seemed more significant ever since Grizzly Man significantly upped his profile three years ago. Herzog’s last release, Rescue Dawn, made just $5.5 million in the States, which is nothing for a film starring Christian Bale but was still a significant increase over Grizzly’s $3.2 million. Focus Features + costume drama sounds like Oscar bait; I can’t wait to see what the Herzog spin on that formula looks like.
“At the age of 15 or 16, same as some kids discover pot, I discovered Martin Scorsese and David Lynch.” Jamie Stuart sent an email pointing to FilmInFocus, an advertorial portal newly launched by Focus Features, in partnership with Faber and Faber and FILMMAKER Magazine. Stuart has produced three new short films for the site. My favorite of the three is called “Jamie Stuart analyzes Atonement,” but that seems like a slight misnomer–it’s really an analysis of the inspirations and influences of Atonement’s director, Joe Wright, who’s literally on the couch and under the microscope.
Another FilmInFocus feature that may be of interest: Behind the Blog, an (apparently) running series of interviews with film bloggers, including Friends of Spout David Hudson and Andrew Grant.
