Mature fall pix try to seduce soccer moms
'Deep End,' 'Vengo,' 'La Cienaga' attracting over-25 demo
However, she, may be the poster woman for what Fine Line exec VP of marketing Marian Koltai-Levine is talking about when she says that "people over 40 start going back to the movies, bit by bit. But the 25-40 age group is tough. They're always tied up. You have to get a baby sitter."
And yet, "Deep End" distrib Fox Searchlight is hoping that Margaret's soccer-mom nightmare hits home with the crowd who can most relate to it -- other parents who wish they had more hours in the day. But, given their schedules, will they come?
"This," says Searchlight's president of marketing, Nancy Utley, "is the real challenge for us with this film."
This is only part of the challenging picture faced by indie distributors, and filmmakers, who are committed to creating movies for an audience for whom SAT tests are a fading memory. Depending on where distribs are situated --for instance, a highly selective handler like Cowboy Booking Intl. or a broad-based outfit like Artisan -- and where filmmakers are coming from, the quest for the mature audience that has no time for "Scary Movie 2" is either a complex project or a straightforward mission.
Says Cowboy Booking co-president Noah Cowan, "We see kids walking around on the street, I bump into them all the time, but we don't have the resources or expertise to find them. It costs a lot of money to attract kids, and besides, we don't necessarily like to work on films appealing to that kind of audience."
Future Cowboy Booking releases, such as Tony Gatlif's latest in his continuing exploration of Gypsy life, "Vengo," and Lucrecia Martel's absurdist Argentine work "La Cienaga," are emblematic of adult-oriented cinema: The very comparison of "La Cienaga" in Cowboy Booking's publicity materials to the work of Bunuel and Fellini presupposes an awareness that even most of today's college crowd doesn't have.
That's where the word-of-mouth screening -- the central tool for marketers handling these types of projects -- comes to the rescue. Every executive interviewed for this story placed high emphasis on word of mouth, that without it, these films would simply die in the marketplace.
"This audience likes to discover new films for themselves, on their terms, and then let their friends know about them," says David Dinerstein, Paramount Classics' co-president and marketing head, hoping this is the case, for instance, with "Focus," starring William H. Macy and Laura Dern, and based on Arthur Miller's novel about anti-Semitism and mistaken identity.
First Look Pictures president M.J. Peckos was looking forward in mid-July to a handful of such screenings for Silvio Soldini's international hit from Italy, "Bread and Tulips," which observes what happens when a wife and mom impulsively discards her suburban life for a fling in Venice -- perhaps the fantasy-fulfilling flip side of "The Deep End's" worst scenario.
Not only was the film previewing in L.A. thanks to the Italian Cultural Institute, but in East Hampton and suburban New Jersey, where, indie distribs insist, there really are over-25 audiences willing to read subtitles.
"Younger moviegoers tend to resist subtitles," notes Koltai-Levine, "but older audiences are much more willing."
Koltai-Levine warns, though, that advance screenings carry a risk: "People are always easier on movies when they get a free ticket. So they may tell you they love the film, but you have to be careful that it doesn't give you a false sense of security. Maybe they'll feel differently if they're paying $8.50 or $10."
Still, the screenings can mean a lot, as director Maria Ripoll recalls when describing the response to her new film, "Tortilla Soup," care of Samuel Goldwyn Films and IDP Distribution. When Goldwyn screened this American adaptation of its 1993 hit "Eat Drink Man Woman" to a largely Latino audience, "people were applauding and laughing at good points I didn't even expect. We had people standing and applauding at the Seattle Film Festival. It seems to be reaching people."
The outreach on "Tortilla Soup" also represents, much like Paramount Classics' handling of Barbet Schroeder's "Our Lady of the Assassins," a case of attracting audiences over 25.
For "Tortilla," says Samuel Goldwyn president Meyer Gottlieb, the complex targeting includes the growing Latino audience, the traditional older crowd and -- because of the movie's highlighting of gourmet Mexican food preparation -- foodies, through the food press.
For "Our Lady," Schroeder's harrowing adaptation of Fernando Vallejo's novel of an older gay author's love of a gang kid on the bloody streets of Medellin, Colombia, the targets are gay audiences, Latinos and, as Dinerstein terms them, "the sophisticated moviegoer who is out on the front lines discovering different films out of the mainstream."
If friends don't tell friends to go, however, there are other means to bring out an older crowd; it just becomes far more difficult.
Reviews for these films become crucial because, says Artisan exec veep of worldwide marketing Amorette Jones, "this audience reads the newspaper, magazines and reviews. The critics help give the film credibility for this audience."
Because of this, negative reviews can kill such films, argues Dinerstein, while "we can overcome mediocre reviews. What the daily papers are missing, though, is their core readership, who is much more interested in reading features about Arthur Miller and 'Focus' than the latest special-effects techniques for movies they don't even go see but which the papers for some strange reason clamor for. The dailies are losing readership, and if they keep operating this way, they'll keep losing it."
Robert Duvall, as much of an icon as anyone for the older indie-supporting crowd, is currently editing his film, "Assassination Tango," which mixes Buenos Aires, Argentina's tango milieu with intrigue, knows that he's making a movie for folks with the kind of life experience for which the tango is a kind of physical rhapsody.
He caustically jokes, "If the studios had come to me with this movie, they would have lavished money on it, and wouldn't have made a good film. But if I go to them, scraping and begging, I'll end up making a better film. I don't know why that is."
Indeed, when his project appeared out of money, MGM/UA came aboard with the needed completing funds.
Just as he doesn't know what kind of audience is going to see my film. Even after all the marketing, screening tests, ads and reviews, he asks, "How can I know exactly?"
