From the studio that brought us the world's first imaginary critic (other than Earl Dittman), David Manning, Sony Pictures is in another critical brouhaha with the supposed invitation and de-invitation of an Orlando movie critic who gave a bad review to The Benchwarmers.
Shock #1: What?!?! The Benchwarmers sucked?!? No... can't be. I mean, David Spade and Rob Schneider are in it. How can that miss????
Shock #2: What?!?! A studio had a crappy picture on their hands, so they decided not to screen it for critics??? Absolutely unheard of... except for half the #1 films so far this year.
We are quickly (very quickly) moving to a place where studios will only show films to critics that they want to be nominated for awards at the end of the year. They truly have no obligation to pre-screen for critics, and most of the time, there is no upside to showing the film to reviewers.
There's lots of noise about this today, check out David Poland, Marc Caro, the accused Orlando critic, a Movie Marketing blog I'm enjoying recently, and Shawn Levy.
Craig,
Glad you're liking MMM. I found your site through a referral link and like you're as well.
Best,
--Chris
Posted by: Chris Thilk | April 07, 2006 at 06:55 AM