HE readers know that I’ve been a blown-away fan of Paddy Considine‘s Tyrannosaur since catching it at Sundance 2011. But I’ve been feeling frustrated ever since that no online trailer has turned up. I learned today that Considine, in defiance of any basic concept of fend-for-yourself distribution survival, is still cutting it together, despite Tyrannosaur being locked to open in England seven weeks hence. Who takes this long to finish a trailer?
Marcu Hu‘s Strand Releasing is planning to open Tyrannosaur stateside sometime in November. (Hu declines to give a specific date.) He said he “cannot control Paddy’s final decision on the trailer. Of course we want it up soon, but we are respecting his decision with the producers to create what he wants. Paddy is very deliberate and wants a trailer that is as perfect as possible.”
Two months ago, on 6.16.11, I asked Hu why there’s no Tyrannosaur trailer, and he said it’s “being done right now with Paddy Considine overseeing it.” And here it is two months and four days later.
“What are you guys doing?,” I asked Hu today. “This is one of the best films I’ve seen this year with a female performance — Olivia Colman‘s — that truly screams out for award-season consideration, and it’s been almost eight months since it showed at Sundance, and two months since it played the LA Film Festival, and it’s opening in England seven weeks from now (on 10.7) and THERE’S STILL NO TRAILER?”
Plus there’s no website, English or American.
If Hu and Considine were secret “mole” agents whose true goal was to diminish and/or kill awareness of & interest in Tyrannosaur as much as possible, they would have made the same calls that they have so far.
“I was knocked out by this film, Marcus — I KNOW when I’ve seen something truly major — and you’re treating it like a some kind of fleabitten mutt dog who’s living in your back yard inside a cardboard box. What is Considine’s malfunction? The movie was finished nine or ten months ago and he can’t finish a trailer that he’s happy with? This is totally nuts.”
The somewhat nebulous, dramatic-content-avoiding, “what is this actually saying?” one-sheet came out in early July, fine. Give the team a pat on the back.
Sunday, 6:35 am: Thanks to “ModernLifeIsRubbish” for providing the just-changed headline.
