Building Buzz
On June 28 my MOOREWATCH partner JimK ruminated about the number of screens on which F911 opened.
But let’s talk about PR. Buzz. The word on the street, if you will. What has this weekend been about? Moore selling out theater after theater, companies being forced to add screening, etc. Why? Because the film opened on a limited number of screens, that’s why. It’s easy to create buzz surrounding a movie that everyone knew was going to be popular the first few weeks of release...all you have to do is limit the screens. That way, people have to clamor to get in. If F911 had opened on 2000 screens, the theaters would be half empty. Instead, it opens on 868 screens, and the buzz is instantly generated.
The usual crop of Moore-ons sprung up to attack this idea. One typical example follows.
My my JimK talk about getting into conspiricy theories! Didnt he pull to get this into as many cinemas as possible? This movie was being so villified before its release that cinemas were being halfway couragous in even accepting it, especially in the face of all of the conrtoversy. There was no negotiating a larger opening release because they got it in every cinema that would accept it. Seeing how it was a #1 though it will be in all of the theathers now im sure. Nobody got played here, especially seeing how some people would have had to drive over and hour to see it and didnt. Having it on less screens has absolutly no GOOD effect on it. Not even for hype reasons.
Then tonight I ran across this article.
Jeff Kaufman, vice president of film at Malco Cinema in Memphis, which operates the theater in Tupelo that is showing the movie, said a limited release, such as the one Lions Gate is using on “Fahrenheit 9/11,” is intended to help build buzz for small films. Called a platform release, the distributor starts with a small number of theaters, then gradually adds more as box office numbers come in.
There’s the print factor to consider, too: “Our booker told me Monday that this one’s in limited release,” said Kevin Triggs, manager of Hardy Court Cinema in Gulfport, the only family-operated theater in the area. “We’ll show it, if we can get a print, but he (the booker) couldn’t tell me when we might get one.”
The line to apologize to Jim forms to the left. As usual.
Update: Once more, for the stupid people… In the days leading up to the film’s release Mikey and the Weinsteins claimed that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy had prevented them from opening wider, which is what prompted Jim to speculate that the real reason was so that the images of lines of people wrapped around the block would create buzz. Jim was roundly ridiculed by many for this position. Now, when Jim is shown to have been correct, we’re getting the Moore-ons moving the goalposts once again with, “Well, that’s just good business sense.”
Nobody is saying that it wasn’t good business sense, only that the whole “We’re being silenced!” meme that has been surrounding this movie since day one is complete, utter bullshit.
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