The cinematic landscape is pretty crowded these days, with 3D blockbusters jockeying for precious screen space and boutique distributors forced to share art-house bookings with rival productions.
Two years ago, it seemed like innovation when Paranoid Park and The Duchess Of Langeais played a first-run double bill at the Royal now, that sort of arrangement is pretty much standard operating procedure – making it that much harder for a given title to stand out in a sea of competition.
Rebel Music, the distributor of Tom DiCillo’s Doors documentary When You’re Strange, has no illusions about the picture’s prospects. It’s going to do really well on video, but theatrically, it probably isn’t a barn-burner. So before When You’re Strange opens in commercial release on a single Toronto screen next week, they’re trying something a little different.
Specifically, Rebel is offering most of Canada a sneak preview, screening When You’re Strange digitally Thursday night (April 15) at various Cineplex theatres across the country. Toronto venues include SilverCity Fairview Mall, the Scotiabank, the Varsity, and the Canada Square you can book tickets here.
It’s an interesting use of the digital screens in those theatres Thursday nights aren’t the busiest for megaplexes, and one show of Clash Of The Titans or How To Train Your Dragon is bound to be undersold. Shift that audience into one of the smaller rooms, queue up When You’re Strange in the bigger auditorium, and everybody wins.
I’d love to see this strategy applied to revivals. Imagine if the Scotiabank dedicated a screen to its Great Digital Film Festival on an ongoing basis, screening HD masters of The Godfather one week and Gone With The Wind the next. In a megaplex with more than a dozen screens, why couldn’t one be devoted to something out of the ordinary?
We can start with the HD presentation of Oliver Stone’s The Doors, just to stay on topic.[rssbreak]
