For the second time in
this year’s Best Picture Oscar derby one of the candidates making its move to
the home entertainment market place has literally been kicked to the curb in
terms of an official PR rollout.
It is both disgraceful
and comically unprofessional that certain groups can’t get their act together
when it comes to getting the news out on the release of a Best Picture
contender, especially when you are talking about a film that has pulled in over
$100 million at the box office.
If you’ll recall, last
week it was Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s staller publicity department
fumbling the DVD and Blu-ray announcement for Zero Dark Thirty. They simply deferred to amazon.com and other
online retailers to carry their water.
This week the guilty
party is Anchor Bay Entertainment and their Apr. 16 rollout of Blu-ray and DVD SKUs
for The Weinstein Company film production of writer/director Quentin
Tarantino’s Django Unchained.
Usually the Anchor Bay PR people are at the top of their game in
circulating the news and details on forthcoming product … certainly a film of
this magnitude would not be getting the bum’s rush when it comes to the home
entertainment release announcement.
For the record, the ARR
comes in at 112 days and the box office tally for the film’s domestic multiplex
run currently stands at $157.4 million.
We were fair to the
publicity people over at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment last week in pointing
out that sometimes the good folks over at theatrical distribution prevail upon
home entertainment to “slow walk” a title that is doing particularly well at
the box office. It happens … you are
just stuck with having to look silly as retailers are ahead of you by a week or
two with the news.
So to be fair to those
handling the PR push for Django Unchained (or the lack there
of), there is the distinct possibility that Harvey and Bob Weinstein may have
their fingers in the middle of this one … they can be notoriously hands-on when
it comes to the self-promotion of their film productions, especially one of
this magnitude.
Maybe the approvals
haven’t come through yet … in the meantime the sales people may (again, acting
in their own best interests) have simply “leaked” the news.
Indeed, the brothers
could be preoccupied with the late charge of The Silver Linings Playbook
and have simply lost focus on what the next steps (distribution-wise) are for Django
Unchained. You can’t blame them
… it is not often that producers have two Best Picture nominees in the same
year.
The alternative is — and
it would be a real hoot-and-a-half if it were even remotely possible — that
somehow the PR brains over at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have gotten
involved with advice on how to bungle a Best Picture launch. At least there would be some consistency in
that!
As to bonus features …
nada at this time.
To download this week's
complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report
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