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"THE COMPANY" already kissed off by distributor?


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For those of use anxiously awaiting the local premiere of Robert Altman's film "The Company", it is an interesting weekend in Denver.

Finally, the film has opened locally. The Denver Post's critic reviewed it Friday, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars. However, instead of a broad based release to everyone's local multiplex, the film is only showing at 2 theatres in the area! One is an art house in Denver (Chez Artiste), the other a mainline theatre in Boulder.

This limited availability indicates that - reviews aside - the film's distributor has declared "The Company" to be a lost cause, with limited audience appeal. Instead of backing the film, they are turning this into a self-fulfilling prophecy by keeping it in limited distribution.

Please check your local listings and report whether this is a national situation, or a local decision that Denver just isn't "arty" enough for a movie about ballet.

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Limited release in south Florida. Was in one theater about 90 miles away for one week. Then in another theater about 100 miles away for a week or two. Nothing closer. This was not until late Jan and with auditions for SI's, was not able to take dancing daughters. This appears to be showing in about one onehundreth of the theaters that Center Stage was showing in. :angry: :green: :yawn: Doesn't make sense. :shrug:

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A quick check of the BO: as of Feb 1, The Company has grossed only 1.1 million. Very suprised the distributor would strangle themselves like that. Perhaps a misguided effort all around? Have yet to see it, but a) Neve Campbell is not a producer B) there was no script (being followed) c) Altman doesn't know ballet d) the distibutor bought it as a spec buy based on the names involved, not because they believed in the film. The worst part of all this is that it did receive high visibility as a ballet film. These miserable BO figures will make it even harder to get backing for the next ballet film.

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:D It is not showing anywhere in Ottawa, Canada yet, possibly Toronto and Montreal, as it was reviewed in our national paper, The Globe & Mail. It is based on a story written by Neve Campbell who shopped it around for years before it was picked up. It received a fairly good review in the Globe and frankly I am looking forward to seeing the movie - no script aside - so many times, the scripts just make me wince in embarrassement. From what I read, it seems that the movie will be more of a docu/fiction piece, but I won't really know more until I see it.

N

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I've already commented on another thread that Sony Pictures seems to be playing it cagey with the release of The Company, handling it like an art film and not a studio blockbuster like The Turning Point and Center Stage. The audience for a Robert Altman film is smaller, and the work has to be shown where a center or pocket of probable viewers can get to it. Gosford Park was the same way. People remember Altman for M*A*S*H, which was generally marketed, but this is a different kettle of fish, and that was thirty-five (?) years ago. A look at the Sony homepage is instructive:

http://www.sonyclassics.com/index.php

See the selections? Not a boffo in the bunch. All very classy, but not big moneymakers.

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The film certainly does seem to be on the "art house" circuit -- in Seattle it's presented by the Landmark chain and is in one of their central city theaters. They've shown most of Altman's recent films, frequently for extended runs. (his work usually does quite well here). I realize that this makes it difficult for some people to see it in the theater, but I think that it's doing better here than it might in the big box multiplexes where it would be up against loud action films.

One sweet detail -- it's showing here at the Harvard Exit Theater, which used to be a small concert house, the Women's Century Club, before it was modified. In 1948 Robert Joffrey presented his first full evening of choreography there, dedicated to his teacher Mary Ann Wells, so it's very appropriate that the film is running in that theater.

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"The Company" was playing in several locations in my vicinity, but that's an exception, I'm sure. Altman's track record, which has always been spotty, has been even spottier in recent years, and this is not one of his major efforts. It's actually customary for a movie like this one not to have a wide release -- often a smaller scale effort leads to much better things -- if the movie gets great reviews and has good word-of-mouth, or a few Oscar nominations. The Company has gotten okay reviews and and mediocre word-of-mouth. (I for one was bored stiff, and and I don't think I was alone out there.) If I were Sony, I wouldn't waste a lot of dough on it either. Not everyone perceives this as Neve's labor of love, but more as Neve's ego trip. (I'm not saying I'm one of the latter.) However, maybe next time Campbell will forgo co-screenwriting duties and hire someone who can write. I don't mean to sound too harsh, but it's quite true that ballet will probably take the hit for this movie not doing well, when ballet is hardly to blame.

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It may well play a while in the Bay Area --

I loved it, really loved it, all my dancer-friends around here loved it (especially the aerialists).....

Watermill, I do hope you'll get t osee it. THe writing is NOT a problem. It doesn't sparkle like "Clueless," which I wish I'd written, but hte dialogue is full of surprises, and anyway, the main characters (a sous-chef, a dancer, and a company of dancers aren't folks who need to talk a lot, anyway). The Best thing about it is how generous-minded hte movie is to the whole social organism that's "growing" ballets -- it's like a day in the life of a coral reef --

And it is so BEAUTIFUL.

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It was released yesterday in France. It is shown in about 15 cinemas in Paris (including some big ones like the UGC- Les Halles), and about 5 in the suburbs, and in a few cinemas in most French big cities (two in Lyon, Grenoble, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Nice, one in Marseille, Aix, Rennes, Nantes, Montpellier, Brest, Clermont-Ferrand, Reims, Dijon, Saint-Etienne, Besançon...) Actually it seems that there is at least one cinema showing it in almost all of France's 95 departements, which is really not bad compared to many other films.

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I think an earlier thread listed this film coming to our area in early February...and it's nowhere in sight. :angry: Could be because we have very, very few "art" theaters, and a ton of the chains, which happily show the latest blood-and-guts special on 11 screens in THX sound. Sigh. I'll keep watching for it.... msd

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I saw THE COMPANY last weekend and was impressed. It had enough non-stop dancing to get an idea of each piece's choreography, and just enough of a story to keep moving forward. It is almost documentary in its approach, with no real beginning, middle, or end. For the most part it avoids trite cliche's, although the "boyfriend" crossing the stage carrying flowers in the middle of a curtain call strains credulity.

If there is any good news to come from its limited distribution, it would be that it won't be long before its available on DVD. :thumbsup:

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