Sony's selling of "Reign"

Two and a half years ago New Line marketing chief Russell Schwartz made a decision not to release Mike Binder's The Upside of Anger -- an emotionally affecting adult relationship drama with two exceptional performances from costars Joan Allen and Kevin Costner -- during 2004's Oscar season (i.e., October- November), bumping it instead into a March '05 release. Anger was well received, but there's no question it suffered in esteem (and possibly at the box-office) because it wasn't in the '04 "derby."


Now the same thing is happening and then some with Binder's Reign Over Me, an exceptionally strong adult relationship drama with a surprisingly affecting lead performance by Adam Sandler and a very respectable one by Don Cheadle. Sony marketing execs Jeff Blake and Valerie Van Galder aren't exactly "doing a Russell Schwartz" -- they've got their own style. But it boils down to not showing the love, not really, and Blake/Van Galder being either unwilling or unable to sell Reign Over Me with the heart and TLC that it needs.

Reign, which I saw in a nearly completed form late last summer, could have been released during the '06 derby season but Blake/Van Galder didn't want Sandler's performance competing for honors with Will Smith's in The Pursuit of Happyness (especially with Sandler and Smith being mainly known for their comic skills), so they bumped it into a 3.9.07 release. And then they bumped it again to 3.23.07.

I've been getting indications all along that Sony is a wee bit fearful of press reactions (a lot of critics are down on Sandler no matter what he does, and some have recoiled at Reign's anecdotal use of the 9/11 tragedy as a backstory element) and aren't 100% behind it. I'm not at liberty to divulge one apparent indicator, but I can report that Sony turned down an opening-night slot at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, which could have started the ball rolling with Sandler showing up and chatting on the red carpet, etc.

It just seems to me that Binder's film is going to get faintly pissed on in the way all smallish adult relationship movies get faintly pissed on these days by big-studio marketing departments. Reign needs a Fox Searchlight or a Picturehouse-style marketing effort, which Sony./Columbia is renowned for not understanding or being the least bit good at.


I am not alone in this view. Sony's Reign Over Me attitude seems to basically be about hesitancy. There seems to be an underlying attitude of, "Let's get Sandler to go on Kimmel, SNL, Letterman and O'Brien...and if it dies or trails off after a week or two, we did our best!"

The reasons for this attitude have nothing to do with research screening scores. Not according to what I've heard, at least. Average Joes allegedly love Reign Over Me. And there's no tracking to go by yet. Sony's half-heartedness is probably tied on some level to Sandler's yes-maybe passive-aggressive mindset, by which I mean he's been saying he loves the film and wants to support it but is not really using his clout to make this or that opportunity happen.

Sandler is holding to his usual policy of not doing print interviews, despite his performance (which I think is brilliant) being a kind of career breakthrough for him. He's playing a guy who's dealing with extraordinary grief (i.e., the film is actually about a dentist who refuses to deal with his having lost his wife and two daughters in a plane crash), and it's fascinating the way Sandler uses anger and rage and adolescent withdrawal to pull the character together while looking like Bob Dylan's twin brother on the Blonde on Blonde cover.

And yet Sandler doesn't seem to be standing up and saying "let's really go to the mat with this one." Like Blake/Van Galder, he seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach.

The underlying feeling seems to be, "We're hoping for the best, naturally, but it would be simpler and less hard for all of us if we just opened this film in the usual blah-blah way and let whatever's going to happen, happen. Obviously we don't want Reign to die -- we love Adam, we love Mike -- but we don't really believe in it, not really, and we don't want to do anything exceptional because we're not seeing any kind of big buck reception."


In short, they're taking the usual big-studio attitude about smallish, sensitive films which is to go through the motions without really feeling the spirit and acting upon it. They obviously get Ghost Rider because the fans get Ghost Rider -- a $35 million dollar opening later this month!. -- but they're acting as if they feel stuck with Reign Over Me. No one thing you can put your finger on, but the attitude is there.

I tried to engage Sony marketing execs in a conversation about the Reign campaign, and all I got back was an e-mail saying I would be invited to see a slightly re-edited version during the next round of screenings. I talked to Binder about what I was feeling and he's not as worked up. His attitude is that he's very happy with the film, that he's proud of it (particularly with Sandler and Cheadle's performances), and that whatever's going to happen when it opens is in the cards either way, and that he's got other movies to write and shoot.

Sony is planning Reign Over Me screenings sometime this month. All distributors think of their films as little children, but all children have to make their own way in the world,. If Reign Over Me gets traction on it own when it opens, Sony will of course smile and pop open the champagne...but if it doesn't find its own traction, c'est la vie.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on February 5, 2007 at 8:07 AM

comment #1

Joel Author Profile Page says ...

Binder is probably just happy the movie is getting a theatrical release at all after Man About Town with Ben Affleck went the straight-to-DVD route.

Posted by Joel Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 10:23 AM

comment #2

p.Vice Author Profile Page says ...

The reason Sandler hasn't been rumbling out of the gate for more attention for this movie is that he, like Smith (and before them Harrison Ford), is the kind of Hollywood actor who won't let their need to appease their dumbass core audience sway to any kind of desire to be taken seriously as an artist. Sandler certainly is talented enough to go the Jim Carrey route and and actually be taken seriously as an actor... but then again look where Carrey happens to be right now.

There's just no way Operaman would gamble the profitibility of his name for taking the risks needed to get some artistic credibility. He'll do a Reign Over Me or a Punch-Drunk love every once in a while, but even if he won an Oscar next year for this movie, that doesn't mean he won't doing Happy Gilmore 9 as his next movie.

Posted by p.Vice Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 10:32 AM

comment #3

James Author Profile Page says ...

I saw the preview for this recently and it looks quite good. But I found it interesting that nothing in the preview communicates the fact that Sandler's character lost his family due to the 9-11 attacks. Sandler's character is simply dealing with the loss of his family, but nowhere in the preview is it communicated that Sandler's character might serve as a stand in for the rest of us still dealing with unresolved grief about 9-11--which is, for, me, where this movie has a great deal of potential power.

I wonder if everyone's gun-shy about putting too much behind this movie because of the reception United 93 has received. There's another very good, very adult drama dealing with dark themes related to 9-11 which critics loved and the public struggled to get behind it.

Posted by James Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 11:46 AM

comment #4

EveHarrington Author Profile Page says ...

Haven't seen the latest one, but with the exception of a good perf by Joan Allen (playing a not very likable character) and a phoned in but fun Kevin Costner, Upside of Anger was an awful movie. It could not have been an Oscar contender by any stretch of the imagination, except maybe for those two actors. And it would have been buried by the bigger awards muscle being siphoned out during Oscar season.

Posted by EveHarrington Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 11:58 AM

comment #5

Hopscotch Author Profile Page says ...

"Upside of Anger" is one of those movies...not good, not terrible either given that it's working something different. Different kinds of characters, kinds of moods. But overall, I couldn't stand it.

There's something about Sandler, for me. I just don't buy him. I've never found him intriguing in anything outside of SNL.

Posted by Hopscotch Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 12:14 PM

comment #6

Doug Author Profile Page says ...

Eve, wouldn't two Oscar nominations for acting have been worth the effort to position it for awards consideration? I do think both Allen and Costner would have been nominated.

Posted by Doug Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 12:32 PM

comment #7

CambridgeCat Author Profile Page says ...

For some reason The Upside of Anger made me literally nausous. I can't say I hated it but it made me feel bad, and not because I was supposed to.

Has anyone seen MAN ABOUT TOWN? How is it?

Posted by CambridgeCat Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 1:19 PM

comment #8

The Movie Man Author Profile Page says ...

Nice article Jeff, this is the sort of thing I like to see, getting behind a movie because you like it, its a nice break from the Oscar/Dave Poland Feud jamboree. There need to be more stories like this one.

As for Binder I think he's a talented guy that just hasn't quite gotten there yet (obviously excluding Reign), I thought Upside of Anger had wonderful performances and moments, but didn't come together (I could have done without the annoying narration for one.)

Posted by The Movie Man Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 1:58 PM

comment #9

Craig Kennedy Author Profile Page says ...

I second Movie Man with the "getting behind a movie because you like it" sentiment.

Has anyone who has seen the trailer also seen the movie? When Jeff first talked the film up some months back, I thought it sounded good, but then the trailer makes it look like the pretty typical Hollywood "Angsty guy must learn to live and in the process changes the lives of those around him" routine.

Is the trailer just reducing the film to it's lowest common denominator components (like trailers often do) or is the film really like that?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Posted by Craig Kennedy Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 3:21 PM

comment #10

raj Author Profile Page says ...

I saw Reign Over Me at a test screening last summer. I think it's got the same problems as Upside of Anger--it's a good and interesting pitch, which counts for a lot and can make its leads enthusiastic about performing. But it's sketchy, thin, and awkward in too many places to make for a complete watching experience. No great scenes. No real intimacy with any of the characters, Sandler's included--despite lots of breakdowns and frank chats, he's always kind of incompletely fleshed out, and I think this is where the performance loses. The film also hedges on the 9/11 stuff by mentioning it only once explicitly, which is especially disappointing in a movie that sets itself so specifically in lower Manhattan. I think it's a movie Binder should be happy, and even proud to have made, and then to try to learn from in making the next picture. If he worked really hard, he could be the mainstream Alan Rudloph--a guy whose films pretty much never get positioned for Oscars, but meanwhile, he gets to make a lot of them because their premises are too uncontroversially unconventional to be dismissed outright.

Posted by raj Author Profile Page at February 5, 2007 3:26 PM

comment #11

EveHarrington Author Profile Page says ...

Doug, you've got a point but both of their perfs were longshots -- Joan Allen because while a good performance the character was a harpy and Academy voters tend to go for "likable" roles, and Kevin Costner because he will eventually be due for a "comeback" Oscar nom, but he's not quite there yet. I loved him in UoA -- he was the film's greatest strength, I thought, but it wasn't really a perf that would blow people away. I just think Jeff's trying to make an argument that is wildly faulty.

Posted by EveHarrington Author Profile Page at February 7, 2007 10:17 AM

comment #12

Joshua Mooney Author Profile Page says ...

I don't know much about this film beyond seeing the trailer (which was abstract, to say the least! Why would Don Cheadle be friends with Adam Sandler? Etc.). I DO know that the song by the Who, "Love, Reign O'er Me," is arguably one of the best songs of the '70s. And it's featured in the trailer, innit? So why is the film called "Reign Over Me? And don't give me that bullshit about how Daltrey's all "Over me-over me-over me!" in the background. It's fucking full out "Loooooove, Reign Oe'r Me" in the only parts that matter. Is it that Americans are too stupid to understand an iambic-pentameter contraction, or they're too fucking jaded to handle a comma in a title, or what? Fucking Pete. I supported him all the way through his kiddie-porn shit (becuz who hasn't, eh? Eh?) but when he started shilling the Who's Greatest Hits to anyone with a checkbook, I guess I went a bit pale over his count'nance, din't I? And now this. Keith Moon is turning over in his grave over 'dis. The Ox? Not so much. Bloke just won't move for NUFFING, will 'ee?

Posted by Joshua Mooney Author Profile Page at February 15, 2007 3:37 PM

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