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“"The Ballad of the Lost City" was officially screened, announcing the addition of a new star in the awards season competition. Although Renly was busy filming "Interstellar" in Iceland and completely missed the pre-publicity of "The Ballad of the Lost Country", this did not damage the film's reputation at all. Click-and-click frenzy debuts with a record-breaking box office record for a single venue！
As an art film, it is destined to be unable to compete with commercial films in the competition for weekend box office in North America. However, "The Ballad of Drunken Country" successfully occupied a place in the North American weekend box office rankings in the second week of December. In addition, it has repeatedly The miraculous "Gravity" is still on the list, and Renly's appeal in the entire North American film market needs no introduction..
Faced with such good results, Sony Classics not only did not get carried away, but also became more cautious. This requires understanding of Sony Classics’ release strategy this year..
As we all know, the awards season is a long process, and every film distribution company will cast a wide net. Starting from the Cannes Film Festival in the first half of the year, it will gradually include seed contestants under its banner, until the Telluride Film Festival serves as a temporary Comma - Although there will still be occasional dark horses after this, they are in the minority after all, and most of the final Oscar winners will come from the previous range..
In other words, each distribution company will have multiple works that are destined for the awards season, with the Weinstein brothers being the most popular. They may even have more than twenty works in their hands, and then travel to major film festivals. Based on word-of-mouth and feedback step by step to eliminate, and finally select your own seed players before and after the Golden Globe Awards.：
The top seed, the second seed. Occasionally, there may be a third seed, but basically two seed players are selected, and further public relations are carried out based on the competition for each award. For example, all the public relations of "Iron Lady" are concentrated on the heroine. For another example, all the focus of "Midnight in Paris" falls on the best original screenplay, and only a very small part of the works can compete for multiple awards..
This is why people always say that "nominations depend on strength, and winning awards depend on luck." Because in the college public relations process, strength and quality have become secondary factors. After the distribution company and the public relations company weigh their interests, they will inevitably focus on some strength. Outstanding works may not be the most suitable for public relations and marketing, or if the person concerned is not good at public relations and marketing, then he will inevitably become an outcast, and the nominations have been capped..
This is why the industry has always criticized the Weinstein brothers. Harvey Weinstein was decisive and collected a lot of works under his banner early. However, after the New York Film Festival, he began to abandon his sons. Many of them The work didn't even have a chance to enter the public relations promotion in December, so it was abandoned by Harvey and completely ignored..
For commercial films, even if no one cares about them, they will still be displayed in theaters or on video rental shelves; and for art films, once they are abandoned, they will truly be in the dark and no one knows about them. Professionals in the industry may not even know the existence of these works, let alone ordinary viewers.？
For independent film art creators, being abandoned by Harvey basically means that all their previous efforts have been wasted. Life is worse than death..
Of course, from a business perspective, Harvey's decision is understandable, which is why he can succeed. But without human touch and artistic taste, when everything is reduced to commercial numbers, artistic creation is in vain, and the quality of the finished film is natural. will gradually decline.
In recent years, even the Hollywood industry has expressed serious dissatisfaction with Harvey, but Harvey is good at dancing and all-round, and will never offend the big guys easily. However, the weak people who are bullied have no way to appeal, so he One company is becoming more and more dominant. Now many distribution companies are secretly uniting to help each other and support each other, hoping to break through Harvey's blockade on the Oscars and win some breathing space..
Back to Sony Classics.
Sony Classics’ preparations for the awards season this year can only be described as mediocre. There were the Weinstein brothers in the past, and Focus Features and Fox Searchlight later. Since 2010, Sony Classics’ awards season work has gradually been in a deadlock, unable to make a breakthrough— —In 2011, there were two leading works: "A Farewell" and "Midnight in Paris". In 2012, there were only four works left: "With Love in Rome", "Chile Says No", "Love" and "Searching for Sugar Man".
In terms of quantity, 2012 was even better than 2011, but why is it said to be a step back?？
2012In 2016, except for Woody Allen, who has always cooperated with Sony Classics for a long time, the other three works were all foreign language works. Even "Love", which later became a hit at the Oscars, was the reason why Sony Classics was able to win It was also because this work was not well received in the early stages of the Cannes Film Festival that they took the lead in winning the North American distribution rights ahead of their competitors..
Just a year ago, "A Farewell" swept all the most important awards at the Berlin Film Festival. Sony Classics still easily defeated all competitors and won strongly, but now their situation is getting more and more difficult..
It can’t be said to be a failure, but Sony Classics does need to find a breakthrough: otherwise, how could Sony Classics be willing to cooperate with Sisyphus Pictures, which has no qualifications or experience, to win the co-production rights of "Breaking Drummer" first?？
So far, Sony's classic awards season film list has only four seeded candidates - compared with the Weinstein brothers who have easily grabbed the distribution rights of double-digit works, it can be said to be shabby; even more bleak. Yes, three of the four seed works are all from related households.
Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine" and 2008's "Midnight in Barcelona" were Woody's last work with Weinstein Pictures to compete for the awards season. After that, from 2009's "Anything Goes" "At the beginning, all of Woody's works were distributed by Sony Classics, and the two parties signed a long-term cooperation agreement.
Asghar Farhadi's "The Past" and "A Separation" two years ago were the first collaboration between the two parties, and Sony Classics successfully pushed this work to the throne of the best foreign language film, and also It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The pleasant experience prompted us to collaborate again this time..
Richard Linklater's "Before Midnight". In the past few years, Richard has never had a fixed partner for collaboration. Each time it was a small-cost independent work. After completion, he would look for a publisher, but he originally planned to Chad made "Before Dawn," which was released by Sony Classics.
Finally, there’s the Coen Brothers’ “Drunken Country Ballad.”.
It can be clearly seen that the current situation of Sony Classics is indeed not very good; but the positive factor is that, in this way, they will focus all their energy on these four works, and the Academy’s public relations resources will be more concentrated, and the competition for awards season will be more concentrated. For war, this is a good thing. What’s more, the focus of the four works should be different..
“"Blue Jasmine" focuses on Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress, and "The Past" focuses on Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actress - but the latter's heroine Berenice Bejo's public relations resources are obviously falling on Behind the former’s leading female lead Cate Blanchett, in addition, “Before Midnight” is focusing on the best adapted screenplay.
As for "The Ballad of Drunken Country", judging from its current reputation and momentum, it can compete for awards such as Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. This is bound to become a Sony classic during this year's awards season. highlight.
Now that the first week of screening has achieved such an excellent response, the public relations department and the publicity department need to be more careful. If the expansion rhythm is wrong, the future of an awards season work can be easily ruined, as in similar cases There are countless things, so they naturally dare not take them lightly. The higher the expectations, the more careful planning and calculation are needed..
In the third week of December, after careful consideration, Sony Classics did not rush to expand its screenings. Instead, it cautiously adjusted its pace and expanded from four theaters to eight, adding only Los Angeles. However, the number of theaters is still concentrated in New York. , a total of seven theaters, while there is only one in Los Angeles, which is vaguely like asking for directions.——
Can Los Angeles accept the folk bourgeoisie story of Greenwich Village?？
The East Coast and the West Coast have always had different tastes in art and culture. Not to mention uncommon genres such as folk songs, even the rap and hip-hop that are popular in the United States have the atmosphere of "East Coast school" and "West Coast school", and they have been arguing for years; then Needless to say, my preference for movies.
Adopting such a careful screening strategy is nothing more than hoping that professional and senior movie fans can enter the theaters as soon as possible, and then interpret and evaluate the movie, bringing more praise, so that other ordinary viewers can be mentally prepared, and even watch in advance. Gain more in-depth understanding of the film and pave the way for subsequent expansion..
Sony Classics is obviously worried that the "negative" reputation will spread too quickly, so it has tightly controlled the number of theaters..
Senior movie fans in Los Angeles have expressed strong dissatisfaction. Isn't this a clear look down on them? Could it be that their aesthetic taste is no better than that of New York? Or do you think they are just for watching popcorn? But after all, there was no further complaint: one theater chain is better than none, isn’t it?？
In comparison, cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago still need to wait patiently. A small number of passionate movie fans in Los Angeles are already very lucky..
It's interesting to say that the North American film market has become lively again this week. In terms of commercial blockbusters, "The Hobbit 2" has officially made its debut, and in terms of artistic works, the star-studded "American Hustle" and "Big Dreamer" have been screened. , the focus is definitely not on the minority, but "Drunk Country Ballads" still leads the way, and has become the new favorite of the popular seeds during the awards season..
Judging from the box office of a single theater, Sony’s classic screening strategy has obviously achieved results.：
For the second consecutive week, "Drunk Country Ballads" once again wrote history！
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