|
Spanish horror film poses marketing conundrum
Wednesday December 19 4:15 AM ET
Studio chief Bob Berney pauses just a split second when asked if his December 28 release "The Orphanage," a gothic chiller sure to boost sales of Ambien, might struggle to land both younger horror fans and older specialty audiences.
It's a pause that hints at the marketing contradictions faced even by a decorated whiz like Berney, president of Picturehouse Entertainment. The movie's many frightening moments are its biggest selling point to the genre crowd, but will those moments keep the prestige moviegoers away? On the flip side, will the fact that the movie is set in Spain and written entirely in Spanish deter the fanboys?
"I wondered about all that too," Berney says. "But the New York Film Festival is kind of the blue-hair crowd, and they loved it. And the fact that Guillermo (del Toro) is involved (as producer), you just can't underestimate his appeal."
Berney has made an art of divining new demos and giving them movies they never even knew they craved -- think the evangelicals who flocked to "The Passion of the Christ" or the multigenenerational and immigrant audiences of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" -- two films he marketed before launching Picturehouse.
He lately has been up to something more ambitious. Instead of just one elusive target, he's tried to find separate audiences who have little in common -- and hit all of them at once. The strategy reached perhaps its apex last winter with del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," a coming-of-age fairy tale tinged with violence, technical wizardry and politics. It aimed simultaneously for fanboys, families, Latinos and specialty moviegoers. It could have missed all four groups. Instead it rolled them together into one gloriously diverse base and rolled up $37 million at the domestic box office, a Spanish-language record.
With "Orphanage," Berney is trying to make lightning strike twice. It's more than just an attempt to top his own feat. Despite the strength of "Labyrinth" and the crossover success of the Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie en rose," 2007 hasn't been entirely kind to Picturehouse. Such critically acclaimed movies as "Rocket Science" and "Starter for 10" failed to crack $1 million at the box office, while the more commercial "El Cantante," the Marc Anthony-Jennifer Lopez salsa pic that was less critically beloved, grossed just $8 million.
A supernatural tale set in a baroque house and a gloomy seaside town, "Orphanage" revolves around Laura (Belen Rueda) and her troubled adopted child Simon (Roger Princep), who has apparitions of dead children, then mysteriously disappears. This sends Laura on a frantic search to find him, chasing the phantoms who may haunt her house while also pursuing her own more personal ghosts in a far more emotional and character-driven way than most genre movies ("a strange combination of European and American," in del Toro's phrase).
With echoes not only of "The Sixth Sense," "The Others" and "The Shining" but also diverse films like the troubled-mother pic "Not Without My Daughter" and gothic classics like "Wuthering Heights," "Orphanage" differs in a number of ways from "Labyrinth." But with its conceit of a child who may or may not be seeing what's invisible to everyone else -- and its larger themes of lost innocence and unredressed regret -- it owes a heavy spiritual debt to that movie.
"Orphanage" also, of course, has a more literal connection to "Labyrinth": the del Toro seal of approval. "Orphanage" is the first movie del Toro has ever presented, and to which he agreed to lend his name on the basis of the script alone. Del Toro served as a mentor and godfather to director J.A. Bayona and screenwriter Sergio Sanchez and also helped bring the project to Berney.
"I believe there's not such a thing in any market as a foreign film or as an art house film," del Toro says. "Emotionally a movie either tells the story it's supposed to tell or it doesn't. I've seen a lot of art house movies that should have been on 1,000 screens and blockbusters that should have been on 15."
Berney has decided to open "Orphanage" in the same chancy slot as "Labyrinth" -- the week between Christmas and New Year, in which Berney successfully gambled last year that he could outwait all the other fall movies and make a fresh push in January.
"The success of 'Pan's Labyrinth' enables us to have confidence in this film, that the audience will accept a Spanish film in a more genre way," Berney says. "If this was before 'Pan's Labyrinth,' we would have never tried this. I'm not sure if we would have even picked it up."
The two movies are inextricable at the marketing level too. Like "Labyrinth," Berney has built buzz for "Orphanage" with screenings at fanboy convocations like Austin's Fantastic Fest, even as he's taken the prestige route through the Cannes and New York film festivals. ("Orphanage" is unlikely to garner the six Oscar nominations of "Labyrinth," though the film is Spain's official foreign-language selection.) A Blu-ray Disc release of "Labyrinth" during the holidays will promote "Orphanage."
The movie faces marketing challenges that "Labyrinth" never knew. Where "Labyrinth" could use its imaginative special effects to play to the Comic-Con set and families at the same time, the obvious campaign for "Orphanage" splits the audience. Play up the spooky and older viewers might stay away, but make it seem too character-driven and you could lose genre fans.
Berney says he'll emphasize the thrills and hope word-of-mouth makes up the difference.
In the end, though, he admits that all the crafty marketing in the world only goes so far. "What happened with 'Pan's' gave me confidence and also raised my expectations in a way," he says. "I don't know how this will turn out. Hopefully lightning will strike twice."
Arteta aims to lead "Revolt"
Thursday February 7 2:02 AM ET
Miguel Arteta is in final negotiations to direct "Superbad" star Michael Cera in the Dimension Films comedy "Youth in Revolt."
In what likely will be Arteta's first feature in six years, Cera will play Nick Twisp, a smart, sexually obsessed teen living in a world of moronic adults. The project is based on C.D. Payne's self-published novel.
"Youth in Revolt" became a worldwide cult hit, spawning sequels, a play and numerous Web site tributes. Gustin Nash adapted the book for the screen.
The film will be Arteta's first shot at a breakout teen comedy, but his indie films share the novel's offbeat sensibility. His 1997 debut, "Star Maps," followed a young Hollywood street hustler, and his 2000 black comedy, "Chuck and Buck," took a twisted look at a man's undying obsession with a childhood friend.
Arteta's most recent feature was the 2002 comedy-drama "The Good Girl," starring Jennifer Aniston as a small-town woman in a dead-end job. |
