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Why did Denzel Washington's acclaimed film open locally far from most African-Americans? Blame marketing, not malfeasance.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 17, 2003
My colleague Elijah Gosier got several telephone calls recently from readers wondering why Denzel Washington's directing debut, Antwone Fisher, wasn't playing locally at the time except at theaters in Oldsmar and Brandon.
Gosier often writes about race relations for the St. Petersburg Times, so he was the reporter readers called when they sensed racial injustice.
Specifically, they wanted to know why an acclaimed film with an African-American hero, based on Fisher's autobiography and directed by a black man, was scheduled in suburban theaters away from the megaplexes of Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Coincidentally, Oldsmar and Brandon aren't where most African-Americans reside locally. However, AMC's Regency 20 in Brandon and Woodlands 20 in Oldsmar are the two highest-grossing theaters in this market.
The callers were right to be upset. It is an injustice that more people haven't had a convenient chance to see Antwone Fisher, No. 8 on my list of the best films of 2002. But it isn't a racial thing, just as bigotry didn't keep My Big Fat Greek Wedding from showing at every neighborhood megaplex and bias against musicals isn't making Chicago difficult to locate.
It's the result of a film distribution technique called "platform release," which is used every year during the holiday movie season and the awards season that follows. A platform release enables films considered award-worthy by studios to open slowly, building word-of-mouth and recognition from critics and awards groups.
Movies must play for at least a week before Dec. 31 in New York and Los Angeles to qualify for the biggest, most profitable prizes, the Academy Awards. That's when celebrities start doing the interview circuit with splashy premieres and behind-the-scenes specials.
Those appearances are meant to impress voters in New York and Los Angeles. The problem is that medium-sized markets such as ours also see those interviews and hear people like Katie Couric announce that this film or that is opening that week. Sure, in New York and L.A., but not always in Tampa Bay or Atlanta or St. Louis or any other midrange market. We must wait for our step in the platform release.
One example is Chicago, a Golden Globe-nominated film that opened on 77 screens in December for Oscars qualification, then expanded to 302 screens on Jan. 3 (including six locally). By Feb. 7, Chicago is expected to be on more than 1,000 screens nationwide, shortly before Oscar nominations are announced. Major nominations could persuade Miramax to go even wider.
Studios can make a quick killing and watch a film's popularity die even faster, or they can nurture the buzz, keeping the movie in the public consciousness with a methodical platform release until the voting begins. Then they can trumpet all those Academy Award nominations in advertisements and transform what could be a moderate box office success into a bonanza.
It wouldn't be a smart marketing move to let Antwone Fisher debut in 3,000 theaters in December if you wanted Oscar voters to remember it in March when ballots were due. The movie would be played out by then, gone from theaters, the buzz all but silent, and audience response wouldn't nudge voters as strongly.
There aren't any hard-and-fast rules to film distribution. Roman Polanski's drama The Pianist took top honors at the Cannes Film Festival in May and is just beginning its platform release, sitting on the shelf for months to wait for the awards season. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a platform release and didn't even know it, expanding only when the film surprisingly clicked with crossover audiences. Otherwise it would have been another Real Women Have Curves, a good movie with ethnic flavor that plays two weeks in art houses, then disappears.
Some films only get a few hundred theaters at their peak distribution because of low budgets for prints and advertising. The fewer screens they occupy nationally, the fewer they will locally. I've gotten countless calls over nearly 10 years in this job wondering if the Tampa Bay area was considered unworthy of some alternative films or unable to appreciate them, or if something more insidious was happening behind the screens.
No, it's just that the most creative independent producers and distributors work with low budgets compared with the deep pockets of major studios. The best that any community can do is support those alternative movies -- even if it means driving 20 miles -- and prove to distributors that we deserve them. Tampa Bay theaters are getting those films in a more timely fashion and usually on more screens than a decade ago.
Gosier had it easy. He got only one call wondering if a conspiracy kept local filmgoers from seeing films that had been plugged in TV ads and interviews for weeks. I've also heard from moviegoers complaining that About Schmidt or Adaptation aren't playing at a theater easy to reach.
True story: I visited New York City in November on the same weekend Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven debuted at two Tampa Bay area theaters. Know how many theaters were showing it in the Big Apple?
Three.
How easy would those venues be for most New Yorkers to reach?
Nobody complains much when the Rolling Stones play at only one Florida venue or the stage production of The Lion King is available only at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. But when studios attach the same exclusivity to a movie mentioned as one of the best of the year, moviegoers are an impatient bunch.
It seems so easy the rest of the year. Blockbusters such as Spider-Man, the Harry Potter movies and The Lord of the Rings debuted on approximately 4,000 screens, about 12 percent of the U.S. total, and appear to be everywhere. Such films, with their massive, built-in audiences, don't need to be nurtured with platform releases. Just herald their arrival with ad campaigns, open theater doors and start counting the money.
Movies such as Maid in Manhattan, Two Weeks Notice and Just Married may debut on 2,000 screens -- about average these days -- and appear to be everywhere we don't want them.
But exclusivity is a great marketing tool. When people can't get what they want -- PlayStation 2, Bucs playoff tickets, whatever -- they want it that much more and often pay more. Sellers go where the money is, as in the case of Antwone Fisher playing in Oldsmar and Brandon for starters. That doesn't make it easy for someone living in St. Petersburg to see it, but they'll get their chance as the platform release proceeds.
Even that platform gets built slower than expected at times. Antwone Fisher was scheduled to open last Friday at four local Muvico Theaters locations. The film was pulled from the schedule two days before opening.
Another conspiracy? No, according to Muvico director of marketing Jim Lee, who called it "strictly a business decision," possibly because the theater chain's film booker in New York didn't agree on terms with the film's distributor for sharing ticket revenues. As more time passes, the studio's demand for a cut will decrease and Muvico will show Antwone Fisher locally, as it already has in its South Florida and Baltimore theaters.
Of course, that could change. If Washington's film doesn't post impressive box office totals in its limited release and doesn't garner any significant Academy Award nominations, the release could be scaled back or hurried through. That isn't likely in this case, but it has happened before to highly touted films such as The Shipping News.
Other factors figure into when and where movies will be shown. Lee noted that so many films have been released during the holiday and awards seasons and are doing so well that even megaplexes can't find screens to show all of them. Why should they give up on steady business for Catch Me If You Can just when the ticket split with the distributors is shifting in their favor?
And there are those geographically challenged distributors who are ordered to find three screens for a film in Tampa Bay area theaters and think only of Tampa, not realizing we're separated by a large body of water and provincial concerns. I could tell you about my heated conversation a few years ago with the distributor of Ulee's Gold, convincing him that Citrus Park 20 shouldn't be the only place the film played locally if he felt like making money.
I could tell you, but you'll have to excuse me. My phone's ringing.