"Elegy" Acquired
Isabel Coixet's Elegy, the Penelope Cruz-Ben Kingsley drama that debuted at the Berlin Film Festival, is going to be domestically distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group...whatever that means. Indiewire is reporting that Netflix's Red Envelope Entertainment "is also on board for the release and will work to promote the film to their 7 million subscribers," blah blah. Pic is based on Philip Roth's short novel The Dying Animal.
Presumably Elegy will be released domestically sometime this year.
Variety's Leslie Felperin gave Elegy a thumbs-up response. Key passage: "Scenes unfold in a series of near-musical dialogue duets, with Ben Kingsley offering finely-phrased arias of self-deprecation and despair. Despite the age difference, he and Penelope Cruz (who's never been better in English) look somehow chemically balanced and credible as a couple in a way Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins never did in The Human Stain."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on May 2, 2008 at 9:05 AM
comment #1
rockne
says ...
Is that Ben Kingsley? (Spoken every time my brother and I see him in a movie, since he's in almost everything.) (First spoken when watching Sound of Thunder)
Posted by rockne
at May 2, 2008 10:57 AM
comment #2
The Hoyk
says ...
What the confusing acquistion statement means is that Sony bought the movie because they saw DVD revenue in it, but they don't want to bother with the time and expense of giving it a theatrical release, so they've retained Samuel Goldwyn Films to do that for them. They've had this arrangement for years now on movies like SOUTHLAND TALES, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, and COWBOY BEBOP - Sony designs all the advertising and marketing campaigns, and seeds some money to Goldwyn, and then Goldwyn is responsible for physically getting the prints to the theatres, putting the ads in the newspapers, collecting box revenue from the theatres, etc.
In a way, you can kind of tell how much faith Sony has in a movie by who handles it. If they've retained Goldwyn, it means "This movie could be good but we can't market niche fare." If they've retained Strand Releasing, it means, "We're going to lose money on this, but maybe the gay and avant-garde folks will show up." And if they're using one of their in-house pseudonyms, like Destination or Triumph, it's contractual obligation time.
Posted by The Hoyk
at May 2, 2008 11:44 AM
comment #3
Arizona Joe
says ...
That was quite an education and exegesis into how the rights to films are divisible and about how distribution is handled.
I think this film sounds fascinating. I would go to see it on the basis of that still photograph alone.
Posted by Arizona Joe
at May 2, 2008 12:53 PM
comment #4
hcat
says ...
Hoyk, I think it's focus who dumps through strand. Like they did with this directors previous work the secret life of words (which i liked quite a bit)
Posted by hcat
at May 2, 2008 1:56 PM
comment #5
The Hoyk
says ...
Strand isn't exclusive to any one studio - Focus and Sony regularly farm stuff to them. Most recently, Strand handled Anthony Hopkins' SLIPSTREAM on Sony's behalf.
Posted by The Hoyk
at May 2, 2008 4:35 PM
comment #6
jany
says ...
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Best regards,Jane, CEO of high availability clusters
Posted by jany
at April 22, 2011 2:12 AM