Lionsgate Home
Entertainment appears to be in total meltdown mode when it comes to moving
theatrical hits from their multiplex venues to the home entertainment
marketplace. The reasons are unclear,
but something is definitely afoot.
Last December, Steve
Beeks, the long-time guiding force behind the rise of Lionsgate from its days
as the Vidmark and Trimark video labels to a major “Hollywood” studio force,
announced his retirement. It is not clear
if his exit is a factor in the sudden inattentive nature of the home
entertainment PR and marketing group of late, but you have to look for
something of that magnitude to explain the breakdown.
Indeed, it is hard to
fathom the seemingly bungled home entertainment rollouts of both of the A24
Films’ Oscar contenders in the past couple of weeks. Lady Bird, a Best Picture candidate
(plus Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and acting nominations for both Saoirse
Ronan and Laurie Metcalf), which is produced by nine-time Best Picture nominee,
Scott Rudin, got its marching orders when Amazon.com started taking orders, not
when Lionsgate Home Entertainment’s PR department made any sort of effort to
announce it.
And, Disaster Artist (Best
Adapted Screenplay) received nothing more than the “royal wave” in its
transition from theatrical venues to the home entertainment arena.
Their home entertainment availability
will be Mar. 6 on Mar. 13 respectively.
Sure, there could be
issues with talent, sign-offs on press releases, miscommunications … you name
it, anything and everything has happened in this business more than once.
Unless Scott Rudin (and his “people”) are at
the heart of the problem with Lady Bird and its home entertainment
non-event launch, and producer, director and actor James Franco is guilty for having
his finger in the pie on the inept Disaster Artist home entertainment push,
there will be some explaining to do.
Both of these films are
connected to A24 Films (maybe A24 Films is the problem), but when things start
happening in “threes,” you have to wonder about the underlying reasons.
The third “shoe to drop”
was the sudden arrival — without fanfare — of director Jaume Collet-Serra
action thriller, The Commuter, as DVD, Blu-ray/DVD Combo Packs and 4K Ultra-HD/Blu-ray
Combo Pack product offerings on the release calendar for delivery on Apr. 17. It is not an A24 Film production, but rather
The
Commuter is a Lionsgate theatrical release!!
This Liam Neeson, Vera
Farmiga, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Banks mystery-on-a-train
theatrical hit pulled in $36 million in domestic ticket sales … with those kind
of numbers you don’t just sit back and watch retailers like Amazon.com start
taking orders, you make a big deal about the home entertainment
availability. That didn’t happen.
For the record, the ARR
for The
Commuter is 95 days.
It’s not just Lionsgate
that has its share of problems, so we are not picking on them exclusively. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, for
example, has been spotty in their execution for sometime now, and earlier this
month their president, Man Jit Singh, was shown the door!
It’s a very competitive
business, the windows are tight for moving theatrical releases from the big
screen to the small screen, talent and producers can be a pain (in terms of
getting things signed off), and there are “politics,” both external and
internal, that play a factor in getting even simple things done … like getting
a press release out in a timely fashion.
All of the studios go through it from time to time — key management
retirements, firings, etc. It will get
sorted out, or heads will roll (have rolled) … that much you can take to the
bank.
As to bonus goodies for The
Commuter, there are two featurettes — “End of the Line” and “Off the
Rails.”
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