Back in the middle of June I put up a post wondering about what went wrong on the marketing end of Cinderella Man. The fact of the matter is that Cinderella Man is a terrific film with an Oscar winning Lead Actor, an Oscar winning Lead Actress and an Oscar winning Director.
The movie was solid and even though I’ve been getting sick of Russell Crowe’s antics recently, I enjoyed it immensely. Almost everyone who saw it agrees.
So, in what can only be described as an attempt to make some more money out of this film (and that’s not a bad thing), giant US thater chain AMC has taken out the follow ad online and in newspapers across North America:
‘AMC believes ‘Cinderella Man’ is one of the finest motion pictures of the year!’ their adverts chime. ‘We believe so strongly that you’ll enjoy ‘Cinderella Man’ that we’re offering a MONEY BACK GUARANTEE.’
I think it’s a brilliant move. Not because it will make people think “Oh well, what do i have to lose?”, but rather it puts into the heads of people “Wow, it must actually be really good if they believe in it that much”.
How much of an effect will this have well over a month after it’s release? I don’t know… they should have done this in the film’s 2nd week. But at this point…. what do they have to lose?
“In typical Ron Howard fashion, the protagonist is always perfectly squeeky clean with no bad traits and the antagonist is arrogant, bloodthirsty, with little redeeming qualities. What hogwash. Why can’t the hero have some flaws to him?”
Well, that would be because Ron Howard grew up in the Ritchie Cunningham household where the harshes words allowed to be uttered were hogwash this, and hogwash that, or holy moley! It’s nice to be nice and gentle, but he’s a fucking HOLLYWOOD producer and director. He should either lead, follow or gets the hell out of the way, not regress and pretend modern times aren’t happening around him.
Sheesh! … ;-)
Just so you know: if you die of fright during the viewing of Cinderella Man, AMC theaters will pay for your funeral…
Now all we need are free flatwear givaways and those tingle seats and we’ll be right back to the golden age of film.
They should team up with a mobile phone carrier on a promotion:
“See Crowe in Cinderella Man, and get a knock-out deal on Sprint PCS service!”
JD, I stand corrected. I relied on my memory too much and probably got the facts wrong about Baer’s German opponent. Turns out I’m as bad as Ron Howard and made the opponent a purely bad guy without redeeming qualities and Baer too much a good guy. I admit my hypocrisy and apologize.
I disagree that every movie needs someone an audience can cheer and one to dispise. My favorite films have characters with good and bad parts to each of them. Purely good guys and purely bad guys are only good for flicks that don’t require people to think and like to have messages and feelings spoon fed to them.
I don’t think it’s a bad offer, but I’d like to see this offer extend to more movies! Heh.
Though I don’t think I’ll be taking AMC up on their offer.
Reasons I haven’t seen this movie:
1. I don’t get to make it to the movies as often as I’d like.
2. This time of year I generally like the fun popcorn action movies.
(unless I’m sick or in the mood for a drama)
3. Rene Zegweller kind of bugs me. I think she’s a decent actress, but something about her in the trailers of this movie bugs me.
The Reasons I will see this movie:
1. It’s a boxing movie (I do like the sport)
2. I generally enjoy Ron Howard films.
So when will I see this movie?
When it comes out on DVD.
John N should do a little more research before accusing anyone from 1930’s Germany of being a Nazi. If you had you would have known that that particular boxer that Baer fought was actually against the Nazi party and helped Jews take refuge in his own home during the war. Perhaps you are less interested in facts when they don’t help support your argument directly though.
I do agree with your post in some respects though. Baer was portrayed very different from how he was viewed at the time, and surely the Hero had a flaw or two. The bottom line is that every movie needs a person the audience can despise and a person they can cheer for, and in order to better accomplish that Howard wrote the characters in a way that would fit these molds.
i smell exploitation…
I wish I went to an AMC theater. I would have taken them up on the offer! I know I’m in the minority (everyone I know that saw it, including my wife, loved it), but I found it sentimental, cliched garbage.
In typical Ron Howard fashion, the protagonist is always perfectly squeeky clean with no bad traits and the antagonist is arrogant, bloodthirsty, with little redeeming qualities. What hogwash. Why can’t the hero have some flaws to him? Why potray Max Baer as being such a brute when in real life he only killed one man and reportedly was very remorseful about it. Plus Baer himself was a bit of a hero proudly dislplaying a Star of David on his shorts when boxing a Nazi opponent.
Even the fight scenes were annoying. They either ripped off RAGING BULL (a far superior film) or else made it difficult to see who was throwing what punch because of the quick edits.
Dunno. This reeks of desperation to me. I have never heard of such tactics to get someone into the cinmea to see a movie with such huge names attached. It’s practically something you would have heard of when Striptease opened not a Ron Howard film. Also, I agree about the title. If they did more in the way of explaining the title, I think people would be interested. As it is, it seems like the producers picked a title they thought would be intriguing but wasn’t.
Hey, love the site. I wanted to say, when you made your original angry post on the topic of people not going to see Cinderella Man, that I think the reasons are simple and few. One reason is perhaps that people are getting a little tired of sports–and especially boxing–movies where the main character triumphs against all odds. But I think the most likely reason that people didn’t go see this movie is because of the stupid, stupid title. I mean, Cinderella Man? Come on!
And I have to admit, I say these things from experience, as I’m one of the people who didn’t go to see it, and for the reasons listed above.