Later this month film festival season begins and film distributors will screen the films they hope will light up at the box office and during award season.
Last year Gravity received its world premiere at Toronto receiving rave reviews would those reviews been any different had it not screened at the film festival?
12 Years a Slave also received its world premiere starting 5 month campaign to Oscar success.
But for these film festivals “successes” the majority are not nearly as successful. The buzz the films received is quickly forgotten ahead of its release, the rave reviews don’t attract the audiences the distributors might have expected.
Screening a film at a film festival is an additional cost to distributors for smaller companies it comes at a risk as they spend extra money bring in talent for the screening but the money taken from the screening isn’t included in the films box office.
Film festivals are great for the industry as it’s a great launching platform for film and the industry. But tickets to the bigger films are always impossible to get for most people. The only time I ever got tickets for gala events was through a colleague that worked at the BFI. In the many years before and after I would always make sure I had my BFI membership so I could get the brochure and send it back straight away but I never got tickets to the bigger events.
So who is the London Film Festival for if the film fans aren’t able to get the tickets they want? Where do the tickets go?
By the time of the London Film Festival the majority of films those receiving their UK premieres have already been screened at several film festivals.
Next week the London Film Festival films will be announced but looking at the recent changes in film releases for October and November it’s easy to see what many of those films will be. As distributors shift many films release to accommodate their LFF screening. In doing so those two months have so many films being released that will make it impossible for many to get the audiences they might otherwise expect or deserve to receive. As if they don’t perform after the first weekend they will be replaced by the many new releases.
Last year Captain Phillips opening the film festival on October 9th with Tom Hanks in attendance it received a lot of media attention and good reviews, the film opening in the UK the following weekend with a strong £3.4m and went on to take £15.9m.
Disney’s Saving Mr Banks closed the London Film Festival on October 20th again with Tom Hanks in attendance and received rave reviews from critics. It opened a month after its premiere after Disney had a massive talker screening program on November 29th with only £792k going on to take £4.2m. To accommodate its London Film Festival premiere Disney had brought forward its release by a month from December.
Would either films success or failure be different if the films hadn’t received their premieres at the London Film Festival?
Is it worth a distributor shifting the release pans for films that they have worked on for months in the hope that it might spark up some more media coverage with a screening at the London Film Festival? Does a screening at the London Film Festival generate any more media coverage than a film getting its own premiere that the distributor is able to completely control? Will a screening at the London Film Festival help or hinder its chances at the box office and open up the film to a wider audience who might not otherwise of known about or gone to see it?
Does the London Film Festival play outside the film fan-base to the general cinema going audience?
Since the BFI took complete responsibility of the London Film Festival the type of films screened has changed to being similar to all the other festivals that come before it. Before the BFI took over responsibility there were many high profile mainstream films that received their UK premieres which are now left for audiences hoping that they will be shown as the surprise film.
