#9thLifeOfLouisDrax, #Morgan, #CafeSociety: Opening today in UK. I was ignored/told a flat-out No when I asked to attend screenings.
— MaryAnn Johanson (@maryannjohanson) September 2, 2016
I don't know what's going on in London movie PR, but it's getting ugly. It's not just me having trouble, but lots of critics.
— MaryAnn Johanson (@maryannjohanson) September 2, 2016
I will catch these movies this wknd, but it's a big expense. I can't keep doing this, but w/o reviews of wide releases, readers disappear.
— MaryAnn Johanson (@maryannjohanson) September 2, 2016
I suspect that might be the motivation behind this on the studios' part: kill off indie critics or defang them as much as possible.
— MaryAnn Johanson (@maryannjohanson) September 2, 2016
And it might even work.
— MaryAnn Johanson (@maryannjohanson) September 2, 2016
Cost-saving of smaller screening rooms, combined with a sense that independent critics aren’t a good use of their marketing budget because they don’t write what they’re told? (To be fair many newspaper critics don’t either, but when I skim even something the Guardian, which prides itself on being fairly anti-corporate a lot of the time, I see a lot more recommendations of big releases than I do on any site run by individuals.)
No. The screenings are still happening in the same screening rooms. They were almost never full, and they’ll be a lot more empty now.
Eventually the screening room will be empty except for Peter Travers.
bastards.
I originally thought along the lines of indie critics not praising everything that comes along, but most mainstream critics aren’t bought either. Smaller screening rooms? Dunno … Are there really so many local critics in even a large city that they have to worry about making the rooms smaller?
It doesn’t make sense and it sucks.
Well, it’s not as if they have a permanent venue AIUI – they’ll hire a screening room suitable to the number of people invited.
Some of the studios and distribs do have their own screening rooms, actually.
Fair enough. Then it looks like just a decision that this isn’t a wise use of their publicity budget.
No one in the London critic community seems to be able to figure out what is going on.