As Christmas Draws Closer, The Stakes Get Higher

With Christmas Day only two weeks away and as the temperature and snow falls through large parts of the country, both the Oscar race and the boxoffice heat up as some of the most anticipated films of the year are set to open. There is always a debate about why the studios backload their best quality films in the last few weeks of the year but when you look at the situation more closely, it comes down to rational decision making by distributors. It's just great positioning. The timing couldn't be any more perfect with end of the year critics awards, top ten lists and the upcoming Golden Globe nomninations smothering these films with love and attention which in turn creates extra awarenesss and want-to-see among moviegoers. Last year the five contenders for Best Picture all came out in the last seven weeks of the year with three of the five being December releases. It's too bad we have to wait until the absolute end of the year to see some of the best films, but it does make for excellent moviegoing during the holidays. The ante is raised this year with the Best Picture race being expanded from five to ten films which gives more movies a chance at the top prize. To prove the point about December being crowded with potential award nominees, up to half of the Best Picture candidates could be opening within a three week span in December. Take a look at the following films in the order they are being released this month:

"Up in the Air" - Paramount
"Invictus" - Warner Brothers
"The Lovely Bones" - Paramount
"Nine" - Weinstein
"Avatar" - 20th Century Fox
"It's Complicated" - Universal

These are some heavy hitters and the competition is going to be fierce. I can't remember a December where so many Oscar candidates are coming from the studios rather than from independent distributors. At least two of the above films probably won't make the cut for Best Picture, but it still points to the fact the studios should be major players in this year's competition. A reduction in studio specialty divisions certainly plays a part in this dynamic. Not that independents won't be involved in the race. Earlier releases from independents such as "The Hurt Locker," "Precious" and "An Education" will no doubt be part of the mix also. An interesting movie that has an outside chance to work its way into the top ten is the Coen Brothers "A Serious Man." If it accomplishes that, it will be due to Focus Features's strategy of keeping the release very small and being able to retain its core art theatres, biding time until the field gets sorted out. There are two basic realities at play here. A distributor never wants to have one of their top candidates be considered a commercial failure. Recognizing soon after the film's limited debut that suburban runs would be a challenge, they made the smart decision not to push supply before demand to keep the perception that the movie was doing fine. In addition, it's easier to book those good suburban theatres at a later date if they hadn't already played the film and failed with it. Focus has been engaging in the fine art of distribution.

One of the uncertainties in the Oscar race is whether or not one of the big commercial summer movies will be invited to the dance. The movie that is most mentioned as a possiblity to be nominated for Best Picture is "Star Trek," a very good and entertaining film. I wouldn't have a problem with that but if there was one summer film to include I would go with Michael Mann's "Public Enemies," one of my favorite movies of the year. The big mystery for me is how this film has never been part of the discussion and has been totally dismissed as having even a remote chance of getting nominated. The film received some excellent reviews including Manohla Dargis of the New York Times who called it "a grave and beautiful work of art" and it did fine commerically with just under a $100 million in boxoffice gross. I think it's a beautiful, stylish, hard edged crime drama which delivers on a lot of levels and has a superb Johnny Depp performance at its center. The criticism I hear the most is that it lacks depth and character development but I don't agree with that line of thinking. Universal must have read the tea leaves early on and has never attempted to position the movie as a Best Picture contender. Studios have to pick the movies they are going to push very carefully because it's an expensive ordeal which can add millions of ad dollars to an already expensive campaign. Perception is everything in Hollywood and "Public Enemies" is perceived to be a disappointment which didn't deliver on its full promise. But no one is going to tell me that "Public Enemies" is not one of the top ten movies of the year.

Just as the Oscar race is heating up, the boxoffice is beginning to build up steam, even though mid-December is a time moviegoers are still busy with school, work, shopping and holiday activities. Two movies are opening wide this weekend which matches the same output as last year when "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and "Nothing Like The Holidays" combined to gross $33 million betweem them. This weekend's two releases, Warner's "Invictus," and Disney's "Princess and the Frog" should easily beat that figure at somewhere over $40 million. These two movies couldn't be more different from each other but they happen to be both dealing with the issue of race. Let's look at "Invictus" first. Clint Eastwood at the age of 80 continues to make important films and his film on Nelson Mandella is almost certain to be in the running for Best Picture. Unlike last year when Warners opened "Gran Torino" on this very same week in only six theatres, "Invictus" is opening on over 2,000 screens. The difference in distribution strategy between the two films is striking. Warner's platform release of "Gran Torino" worked to perfection as they waited to early January to go wide, creating a huge demand and market for the film after they let the dust settle on the other big Christmas films. The curious thing is that "Gran Torino's mass appeal blue collar audience would seem to have been more conducive to a wide release and "Invictus," with its subject matter and more upscale appeal, could have easily gone with a slower, more deliberate pattern. That could be true but one can't argue with success. "Gran Torino" became Eastwood's highest grossing movie at $148 million, a figure the studio would gladly take on "Invictus" but probably will fall short of. Each year's crop of films are different and there are a number of different considerations studios make in deciding how to release a film. Is Warners showing more confidence with "Invictus" by booking over 2,000 theatres from day one? I believe so. It may come down to having more marquee power with three major names, Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon to sell to the public rather than just Eastwood's name on "Gran Torino." Or Warners felt more comfortable in mid-December after sizing up the competition it will be facing in the next few weeks. With "Gran Torino" there was a bit of mystery of what the movie was actually about so a few extra weeks in limited release landed up helping to define the movie more and grow the buzz. Getting back to this weekend, "Invictus" is positioned nicely to capture the adult audience with the animated "Princess and the Frog" as its only new competition in the multiplexes. If the film can establish an audience base and open in the mid-teens with its gross, it should have many weeks to play because Eastwood's films generally have strong legs. On the other end of the spectrum, Disney also is positioned nicely with the family audience with their latest animated film. Two weeks ago "Princess and the Frog" opened one theatre in New York and one theatre in Los Angeles with a $25.00 ticket in exclusive engagements which offered much more than just the movie. With interactive displays and Disney's stable of former princesses on hand, the movie has already amassed an unbelievable gross of $2.8 million, setting it up perfectly for its expansion into 3300 theatres. At this point, does it even matter that the movie stars Disney's first African American princess? Disney has a lot riding on this movie and could use a big hit. I think they're going to get it. Their princess merchandising line is a $4 billion annual business for the company and so far the merchandising for "Princess and the Frog" has been jumping off the shelves so it looks like it's another one of those movies that could be the right movie at the right time. These animated movies take years to make so Disney had no idea who was going to be in the White House at the time of the release. Having the Obamas and their own princess daughters in Washington only adds to the sizzle.

Speaking of being timely, right now "Up in the Air" is the movie with the most Oscar heat and is considered the front runner for Best Picture. That could change anytime in the next couple of months and it probably will since all the potential candidates haven't even opened yet. This may be a year when various films keep jockeying for postion and trading off on the lead and it stays a wide open race. But in the space of a few days last week, everything came together for this George Clooney starrer about corporate downsizing. The day before "Up in the Air" opened in 15 exclusive theatres last weekend, the film was voted Best Film of the Year by the National Board of Review; it then went on to gross $79,000 a theatre with long lines and sellouts all weekend with critics and audiences alike praising its charms. Yes, people are still being laid off, it's still a tough economy, but a movie that's timely and rings true, in the hands of an excellent director, in this case Jason Reitman, can become the movie of the moment. Audiences are connecting with it. It's real, heartfelt and entertaining all at the same time. It's the type of film we seldom see from a studio anymore, a story dealing with what's going on in today's world. When a movie is bold and hits the zeitgeist, it can go far. It reminds me of 30 years ago, Christmas 1979, when one of Columbia's Christmas films was "Kramer vs. Kramer." Back then, the studios had two tracks at Christmas and labeled their releases 'A' and 'B' based on boxoffice potential with the 'A' track films getting the better theatres. It was funny but often the studios guessed wrong with their own movies and the so called 'B' track movies became the more successful films. This is what happened with "Kramer vs Kramer," a film which tapped into the era of working couples, a yuppie divorce and the eventul child custody fight. Columbia didn't have much faith in the film and put it on their 'B' track and all it did was gross $109 million ($250 million in today's dollars) and win Best Picture of the Year. Will "Up in the Air" be this year's "Kramer vs. Kramer?" We'll see. By Christmas Day, the film will be playing everywhere in the country and the other films will also have had opened so the Oscar picture may have another favorite by then. Then again, it may not.
2009 Copyright David Sikich. Video clip used with permission by First Business LLC.