« Wellspring's foreign matter; Tom Hall's art attack | Main | Flesh and the World: making plans with Nigel »
February 24, 2006
Critical condition: keeping stiffs under wraps
NY Post's Lou Lumenick makes some calls about the aborning practice of not previewing crap movies for critics, such as Friday's Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion and Weinsteinco's Doogal. 
Lumenick quotes Lionsgate boss Tom Ortenberg: "We are not going to spend $50,000 for the privilege of negative reviews for a film that isn't going to be affected by them." The Postie counts eight movies kept out of sight this year, as opposed to only 7 in 2005. "Kids aren't reading reviews, so these movies are essentially bulletproof," Lumenick quotes a reformed studio publicista. "Ortenberg is more blunt about why there were no screenings for... Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman," which grossed... $50 million... last year—despite awful reviews. Ortenberg concedes it's a "tough decision" to skip screenings... 'The money for screenings will be better spent on more advertising."
Posted by pride at February 24, 2006 03:28 PM
Comments
"The money for screenings will be better spent on more advertising."
Tell that to the new owners of the Village Voice. Lionsgate has pulled its ads from that paper -- nothing for "Madea's Family Reunion" this past week, nothing for "A Good Woman" a few weeks ago.
Lionsgate is following the company policy of Miramax and Weinstein: No ads in papers that are anti-war or anti-Bush.
Posted by: Chucky in Jersey ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 26, 2006 10:35 AM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)