There was much excitement by the UK Film industry, film journalists and bloggers about the announcement of the films in this year’s London Film Festival but does anyone else care?
Does a film screened at the London Film Festival compared with all the other Film Festivals differ now with the media coverage the films get and then more importantly the box office the films will take?
The Imitation Game had its World Premiere this week at the Toronto Film Festival the film opens the London Film Festival but doesn’t open in the UK until a month later will the buzz and media attention that it gets from its premiere in October help or would of a November premiere closer to its release date had more benefit?
Last year Captain Phillips opened the Film Festival and the film opened a week later after receiving much media attention and good reviews the film opened strongly with £3.5m and went on to take over £16m at the box office. Had the film had its own premiere not part of the London Film Festival would it been as successfully probably?
Closing the festival last year was Saving Mr Banks the film received positive reviews and a lot of media coverage, Disney had a big screening talker program to build word of mouth. The film opened a month later with a disappointing £792k and disappeared quickly out of the charts.
This year The Imitation Game opens the festival but doesn’t open here until a month after its screening whilst Fury closes the film festival on October 19th and opens the days after and will benefit most from the film festival screening but had it not been part of the festival chances are starring Brad Pitt Sony Pictures UK would have had a London premiere
The London Film Festival is a film festival for London about London but do many Londoners not connected to the industry get tickets to see the major films at the festival? Over the many years I tried the only time I was able to get tickets for any of the major screenings and Gala events was in 1992 through someone working at the BFI.
Away from the parties does the London Film Festival help the industry as the films that open and close the festival would have had their own premieres if they weren’t in the festival as would many of the gala screenings?
It’s the smaller films from the smaller distributors that are seeking the biggest benefits from having their film in the festival in the hope that their film will get the media coverage they need to get the film out to a wider audience who might of probably never heard of the film before and expanding its box office potential when it’s released but as the media channels are focused on the high profile films a film screened at the London Film Festival might mean the film will fail before it even opens. As the distributor doesn’t get the box office taken at a film festival screening it might not matter to a major studio but when it’s a small film that has a very small audience that might pay to see it and if most saw it at the festival then the distributor is going to lose out.
Another problem the London film festival causes is with a bottleneck of releases in the weeks after their screening as the distributor hopes they can cash in on the media coverage generated. Which has caused 13 films being released on October 24th including 7 wide releases, it is also half-term school holidays so several films aimed at children that exhibitors would prefer to have in their cinemas as they will be more of a sure thing. With the release of Interstellar two weeks later and The Hunger Games Mockingjay two weeks after launching the Christmas film season. It means there is very little wiggle room for any of these many films to find audiences as exhibitors will be looking ahead for the sure thing release rather than holding on to these releases to give them a chance to find audiences.
