The Circuit

So says John August, screenwriter and director of "The Nines" which preemed at Sundance 2007, and one of 12 films that "pretty much tanked" afterwards. 

Inspired by Mark Gill's LAFF keynote, which is fast becoming one of those landmark indie film articles (which are usually cold showers), August goes on to list the key things he learned during "The Nines" sinking release including:

2) Theatrical release is kinda bullshit.

3) The DVD should have come out sooner, maybe simultaneously.

4) I should have paid a lot more attention to foreign.

5) Without an alternative, everyone will just pirate it.

August's post becomes a big argument for day-and-date releasing.  He believes the ad campaign mis-fired because it was built solely for the theatrical release.  Yet the film was platform released - in only two cities.  So when his buzz-worthy lead actor went on Leno, they couldn't capitalize off the interest of, say, some teenager in Iowa who had no legal way of seeing the movie. 

And there's the rub -- if the teenager really wanted to see it, he could.

He's not kidding about the piracy prob.  On my vacation to Argentina, I realized that the locals were up-to-date on all the current U.S. releases months before those flicks hit their theaters.  Thanks to BitTorrent.

He has some interesting follow-up posts.  Including one titled "I never told Robert Redford to suck it."

I said that Sundance buzz is annoying and meaningless, but that doesn’t mean the festival is irrelevant. Quite the contrary. Film festivals are public events in which thousands of people come together to watch challenging, independent film. The failure of arthouse distribution for indies makes festivals even more essential, because without film festivals, most of these movies would never screen before an audience.