Filmmakers hanging their highest hopes on winning an Academy Award know it’s the dream scenario guaranteed to boost box-office with a post-Oscar bump worth millions, right?¬† …um, not always. Not when the distributor is caught up short and unprepared to capitalize on this chance of a lifetime opportunity. The New York Times has the disheartening story of how ThinkFilm dropped the ball on this year’s incredible Best Documentary Oscar-winner, Taxi to the Dark Side, directed by Alex Gibney:
In a June 19 filing with the Independent Film & Television Alliance, an industry organization, Mr. Gibney’s company, X-Ray Productions, asserts that ThinkFilm defrauded him by not having the financing to distribute and promote “Taxi” properly and seeks to reclaim the film’s distribution rights. The complaint says ThinkFilm’s failure to pay vendors caused the film’s Web site to shut down, and that the company did not advertise the post-Oscar run in major magazines. Since its release in January, the movie has made less than $250,000 in theaters.
“I’m upset because the whole commercial strategy of the film was predicated on the idea of winning awards,” Mr. Gibney said. “The fact that they were fiscally unable to capitalize on the Oscar infuriated me for two reasons: They had been in financial difficulty for some time and hadn’t disclosed it to us; and we won the Oscar, and they still hadn’t disclosed it to us.”
The single solitary movie about the war that manages to break through the Iraqnophobia of critics and industry obstructions — and it dies out of sight, due to negligence or outright abuse of authority, snuffed out in custody behind walls of confusion, incompetence and mismanagement. Sad, and ironic.