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Movie Marketing

Oscar nominations will push some films out to broader audiences

oscarThe key quote in this Variety story is this line:

Quite simply, the nominations are a linchpin in selling specialty titles to the public.

Many of the movies nominated yesterday for Oscars are getting wider releases this weekend or in the next couple of weeks, something that was planned all along by their respective studios.

I really don’t have the strength to into my problems with this again…

But let me just say that this whole notion of platformed theatrical release is downright antiquated. If it didn’t cost so darn much to distribute movies, and if more people would realize that the limited space created by the number of theatrical screens was now an artificial constraint we wouldn’t be in a situation where large swaths of the audience were unable to watch Oscar-nominated movies.

Imagine if you were able to, upon seeing a TV commercial for something like Revolutionary Road, you were able to order a VOD download with the push of a button. Right now, when the hype is high.

Instead you have to find which of the five theaters in your metropolitan area it’s playing at and, if you can’t make it to them, hope it comes to a screen nearer to you.

This whole “we’ll make it and hope an Oscar nomination boosts it’s box-office” mentality just makes my head hurt. It’s so completely the opposite of every other form of mass entertainment and is a remnant of the old distribution world.

Hmmm…guess I did have the strength after all.