I live in Guadalajara, Mexico and that’s not good if you love movies.
Don’t get me wrong I love this place, but when it comes to movies, it can be dreadful.
Theatres, distributors, studios, etc they’re all out to make money. I can’t blame them for that; however this tends to get in the way between the movie fans and the movies they want to see in theatres. Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a good example of this. Initially it was going to open the same day as in “The States” and local mayor movie chains decided that it didn’t had a place in the busy summer seasons. October 8 was the next date they gave us and , from what I heard, distributors felt that there wasn’t enough local marketing behind it so they talked to Universal Mexico and now…drum roll…November 5 is the supposed day of the premiere.
That’s a three month wait for a movie I’ve wanted to see since it was announced. Waiting, sometimes when there’s not even a set release date, is what gets you. Sometimes the wait pays off eventually and you discover that the movie you desired to see was worth every penny you spent and every extra minute you waited. Disappointment is another possible outcome; sometimes you wait and discover that the movie you anticipated was an absolute piece of shit. Then there’s the worst outcome of it all, the movies that never come out in theatres.
Someone doesn’t have enough confidence in a particular film and it’s never released here. Movie theaters sometimes display posters and other promotional items for movies that have don’t even have a release date. I personally grow tired and frustrated of seeing posters of films that I may never get to see in the big screen. Take “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, it opened in Mexico City and not many people went to see it, now the word is that it may never get a theatrical outside of this nation’s capital yet..a poster for the movie is still displayed at my favorite theatre, a this point it’s almost publicity for the home video release.
After many years of waiting for movies to come out I must admit that it’s hard to get excited anymore. I see a trailer for a movie that has a budget under 100 million and I immediately think of the DVD/Blu-Ray release. That’s a sure thing, theatrical releases…those may or may not come.
Why do we have to wait? I guess the best answer I can come up with is that Distribuitors, studios and movie companies are cowards and movie audiences are stupid. Releasing a movie in theatres is a big deal and it costs a lot of money, I know. However I hate how “the powers that be” never seem to want to take a risk. If the movie is simple and not challenging for the movie going public then they’re going to release it on timely fashion. People gobble up the same shallow romance stories (The Twilght Saga), the same empty and hollow family movies (MARMADUKE GOT A WORLDWIDE RELEASE FOR FUCK’S SAKE) and the always dumb huge action movies (Transformers 2). The audience doesn’t want to the take the risk and go see something challenging or maybe even something with subtitles. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say they don’t want to go to the movies because “They don’t feel like reading”.
You want to know how bad the “I don’t want to fuckin’ read” epidemic is: When I was younger only family movies got dubbed. Right now they’re a dubbed version of Resident Evil: Afterlife playing. If you’re old enough to watch Resident Evil, you’re probably old enough to read. I’m pretty convinced that the dubbed version exists only because the studio knows that people are lazy.
The people don’t want to be challenged and the movie making companies don’t want to challenge them, that’s the bottom line. And then, those of us who want to go see good movies, different movies, challenging movies…are always waiting.
One final thought. I'm a grad school student I go to school 3 days a week. There's this guy selling movie bootlegs at train station nearest to my school. He always has bootlegs of the movies that haven't come out in theatres yet. I don't buy bootlegs because I love the movie going experience however I think that if movie studios want to fight piracy..they could try releasing on time. That way they won't be beaten to the punch by Mr. "Bootlegs at the train station"
