Following Nikki Finke’sreport that pre-production on Halloween 3-D has been halted and therefore the film has been delayed, much of the discussion focused on whether or not it had something to do with The Weinstein Co.’s money troubles and/or possibility of a takeover by Summit Entertainment.
All I could think of, though, was maybe the 3-D threequel can now actually be appropriately released around the time of its namesake holiday rather than in a summer month. The report did after all note that TWC/Dimension is properly re-releasing Halloween II, which underperformed when it opened late last month, on the weekend of October 31st — at least for midnight shows, anyway.
It was actually a bad summer for wrongly released holiday-titled films, as Nia Vardalos’ I Hate Valentine’s Daydid poor business in a few theaters when IFC debuted the romantic comedy in July. So what if it has a title that’s anti Valentine’s Day? It should still have been released in February.
And movies in the Halloweenfranchise should be released in October. I don’t care if horror is supposed to do well in August or if all four installments since Dimension acquired the rights to the series have come out earlier than October. Thankfully I’m not the only person who thinks it’s been stupid of them to put these films out in the summer.
Check out what other film blogs think of the Halloween 3-D delay after the jump:
While most water cooler discussions today focused completely on the Kanye West VMA controversy, the playground likely had room for another topic related to MTV’s award show: the new trailer for The Twilight Saga: New Moon. But were the boys participating in that talk? Summit probably hopes so given that the spot seems to be trying harder to appeal to that young male demographic.
I don’t think the attempt will work, however. For the first Twilightfilm, after reaching out to the true, female-dominated fanbase, Summit released a trailer that admirably sold the thing as if it were a superhero movie. It came really close to getting me in the theater. This time they’ve got another more action-heavy trailer, which at times makes New Moon seem like The Matrixas directed by Stephen Sommers. Which I guess might seem cool to teenage boys. But there’s still enough obligatory beefcake shots and romantic fluff to overpower that idea.
Male moviegoers, feel free to prove me wrong. First, though, let’s see where the other film blogs stand on the issue after the jump:
This week is proving to be a monumental moment for failed movie marketing campaigns. Over at Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke shares an insider’s look at the blunder of Summit’s Bandslam campaign, which is being blamed for the movie’s dreadfully disappointing bow. Meanwhile there’s the apparent mistake of Fox’s Avatarpromotion, in which “overwhelming response” caused the film’s site to crash while people attempted to get free “Avatar Day” tickets for this Friday (we think it was all a ploy to attract more interest from markets where there’s actually little response and awareness, such as Denver). Throw in some spoiler spewing from The Time Traveler’s Wife’s Rachel McAdams, and it’s clear we’re seeing some terrible mishandling of film promotion lately.
The fact that District 9 did so well with its advertising and buzz only makes the blunders of this week seem that much worse. Plenty of reports around the web this week highlighted the contrast between the campaigns and performance of D9 and Bandslam (some people have also been contrasting the latter with The Ugly Truth’s marketing). But will the mistakes cause Hollywood to do better? Looking back at some past marketing errors, we can only assume not. Check out some of the worst movie marketing blunders (including one for a film yet to come out) after the jump. …Read more
Today’s news that Summit Entertainment has already chosen a release date for Eclipse, the third entry in theTwilight series, suggests the studio is in a hurry. With New Moon, the second entry in the series, currently in a production surge under the direction of Chris Weitz for a November 20 release date, Summit’s latest decision raises the bar even higher, by placing Eclipse right in the heat of summer 2010’s blockbuster season. What’s the rush?
Former New Line marketing chief Russell Schwartz, whose resume includes a steadily successful franchise about hobbits and rings, offers one piece of advice for the newbies at Summit: Slow down.
It could mean, in short, that New Moon will be a little bit bloodier than anticipated. Or certainly the Twlight film after that. Is there any filmmaking/distribution outfit with a more pronounced reputation for being deeply in love with arterial gushings? That’s Lionsgate in a nutshell.
So declares Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere, in response to Sharon Waxman’s report (for which “executives at Lionsgate and Summit declined to comment”) that Lionsgate (home of the Saw, Hostel and Tyler Perry franchises) may be buying Summit Entertainment, including the company’s library and slate, which includes teenage necrophilia phenom franchise Twilight.
But of course, Wells’ “nutshell” definition of Lionsgate is out of date. It’s an open secret that Lionsgate is so desperate to distance itself from its bloody past that the distributor has spent the past year engineering the failure of its remaining genre stock — dumping Midnight Meat Train in rural dollar theaters; taking the ultra-cinematic The Burrowers off its theatrical release schedule entirely; killing Cabin Fever as a theatrical franchise by releasing its Ti West-directed sequel straight to DVD. If anything, in Lionsgate’s hands, the Twilight sequels are likely to go even more tame.
Back in September, Kathryn Bigelow told SpoutBlog that there’s a misconception regarding the failure of movies dealing with the Iraq War because so far we’d really only seen dramatic films about soldiers coming home. We hadn’t exactly seen any war movies about the ongoing conflict. “I mean, war is inherently dramatic, look at Black Hawk Down,” she explained, picking a film released a year prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Now it should make more sense that she referenced that specific title, as a new international trailer for Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker almost makes this film appear to be Black Hawk Down reset in Iraq. There seems to be a lot of similarly chaotic action involving an ensemble of talented actors running around a war-torn metropolis. The main difference is all the stuff with Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), which actually makes it potentially even more appealing to the action movie crowd, they who never tire of the “which wire do I cut?” cliches.
So why are we only seeing an international trailer, with no domestic release date for The Hurt Locker in sight (Summit Entertainment’s 2009 preview only mentions a Spring opening)? …Read more
Tron 2.0, described as a “next chapter” kind of sequel, has cast two actresses, Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett, both of whom were in Turistas. The production, which is to start filming in the Spring and to be released in 2011, is still looking for a male lead. Wait, you ask, isn’t the male lead split between young and old versions of Jeff Bridges? Apparently that “trailer” we saw back at Comic-Con was only test footage.
Speaking of things that were cool in the early 80s, James L. Brooks is finally making a sixth film, tentatively titled How Do You Know?, and has just cast Reese Witherspoon as one of three leads.
If you’ve seen the new trailer for Dragonball: Evolution, you may fear more live-action anime adaptations, so ignore this announcement from Universal about bringing TV and toy sensation Bakugan Battle Brawlers to the big screen.
If you want to know anything about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, there are a few good documentaries to check out, but if you want a fictional love story involving the architect, you may look forward to the adaptation of Nancy Horan’s historical novel Loving Frank.
Catherine Hardwicke is actually better off not directing Twilight: New Moon, which Summit has set for a November 20, 2009, release. Rush jobs like this are rarely good, yet the two subsequent sequels are also tentatively slated for the same timeframe in 2010 and 2011. I guess if you think the Saw movies kept getting better, you could be hopeful.
It’s not being received well at all on Earth, but maybe the new remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still will get better reviews in Alpha Centauri, a nearby star system to which Fox is beaming the disaster sci-fi film. Despite the negative reaction here, it’s expected to gross at least $25 million, though that would be less than the last lame global warming-based sci-fi movie, The Happening, which opened to $30.5 million back in June.
The beloved holiday classic A Christmas Story has been turned into a musical, which will have industry-only readings next week. As long as there’s a musical number titled “Fra-Gee-Lay” involving a giant dancing leg lamp, I might want to attend my first Broadway Christmas production in twenty years.
Terry Gilliam, who is being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Dubai Internation Film Festival this week, is looking at Dubai’s new studio and for local funding to potentially shoot his revived The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in the country. I’m still crossing my fingers that this film actually works out this time.
Colombian filmmaker Andres Baiz (Santanas) will make his English-language feature debut with Babylon, a 3:10 to Yuma-like film set in Jamaica and starring Paul Giamatti as a British minister.
In a huge blow to women in film, Catherine Harwicke was officially announced to be exiting the Twilight franchise after a weekend of rumors. Summit Entertainment’s press release politely claims the decision was rather mutual because the first sequel, New Moon, is being rushed into production yet Hardwicke desired more prep time. Gossip in the blogs, however, says it had more to do with the director being difficult during the first film’s shoot. Whatever the reason, Summit will be pressured to hire another female filmmaker. I bet Lexi Alexander could use the gig after her miserable weekend.
Alexander’s Punisher: War Zone “fired blanks” at the box office over the weekend, placing 8th with only $4 million, which was less than a third the opening of the last Punisher in 2004. As for other new releases, Cadillac Records grossed $3.5 million, though on far fewer screens, and Frost/Nixon made $180,000 from only 3 locations, earning it a per-screen average of $60,000! And from a mostly 35+ audience. Four Christmases kept its top spot on the box office chart with another $18 million.
Due to the troubled economy, a number of producer deals at Paramount and Universal will not be renewed, including that of the prestigious duo of Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. Though The Hollywood Reporter claims the producers will continue prepping Jurassic Park IV at the studio, ComingSoon.net just heard from them directly that the sequel has died with Michael Crichton’s recent passing.
I knew from the recent Hollywood Reporter feature on Twilightthat Summit Entertainment planned to release a new trailer more geared toward a male audience, but I never would have guessed they’d do such a damn good job of it. I’ve been hating on this movie from the beginning, but now part of me is actually thinking I’d like to see it. And I bet a lot of teenage boys will be thinking the same, only more so.
This is pure genius marketing, and it would have been in Summit’s favor to have gone this route all along. What with superheroes so huge right now, why hadn’t they already tried to sell this thing as being like a comic book movie rather than a sappy adaptation of goth chick lit? Wasn’t that bit of dialogue referencing Spider-Manand Supermanin the film the whole time? Such a line needs to be exploited, and it’s a shame the fledgling studio took so long to employ it. This trailer is seriously what Summit should have shown at Comic-Con.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
Following Nikki Finke’s 
While most water cooler discussions today focused completely on the Kanye West VMA controversy, the playground likely had room for another topic related to MTV’s award show: the new trailer for The Twilight Saga: New Moon. But were the boys participating in that talk? Summit probably hopes so given that the spot seems to be trying harder to appeal to that young male demographic.
Back in September, 
