So what the hell happened to Grindhouse?

From AICN, Quint here with a rather interesting rumor, which I was alerted to by the all-seeing Monki.

I think it's a horrible idea, of course, but it is an interesting rumor.

Nikki Finke, who has taken on the responsibility of challenging the whole concept and execution of GRINDHOUSE, got on the horn with Harvey Weinstein about the poor weekend.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE STORY!!

Of course, he's not happy and his thought is to quickly recut the film, chop DEATH PROOF from PLANET TERROR, cut in some of the missing footage, and re-release them in the coming weeks.

I actually really like that idea... if they were going to do it in 5 or 6 months. Doing it now seems like such a panicked, knee-jerk reaction. I understand, from his point of view, but what did he expect to happen?

He blames the length, which surely had something to do with the box office, but know what's really to blame? Whoever decided to release it Easter Weekend. The concept of counter-programming always sounds attractive, but it hardly ever works. What did they expect releasing a 3 1/2 hour long R-rated gore-fest, celebrating exploitation films, on this family weekend.

People going to see movies last weekend were more than likely going as a family, taking the kids or the parents and grandparents.

If 300 had been released last weekend, it would have flopped, too.

I guess the question now is, should the Weinsteins cut their losses and pull the film, re-releasing them as two different movies in a few weeks or should they let it have its run as originally intended, potentially losing more money?

I just don't think cutting the movie at this point is going to help them at all, at least not in the US. You might get a return from the fans you already have to see the extra footage, but do they really think they're going to now bring in new people?

I can see the dilemma Harvey is in, but I'd suggest he take a moment to breath and really think this out.

What do you folks think?

Hey folks, Quint back... I just had a conversation with Harry where an interesting bit came up about the way the Weinsteins marketed the movie.

They didn't spend any money on internet publicity. None. No ads on Rotten Tomatoes, no ads on IMDB, no ads on Drudge. They didn't even have a myspace page...

Harry's point was that Warners did the exact opposite with 300, which is why he wrote that story about the power of the internet back when it did huge business. Exit polls showed that 65% of the males that went to see the movie said they heard about it online.

Now, we geeks will have seen all that anyway, but I'm talking about the average joes out there that want to have a good time. That would see an ad on salon.com or yahoo or aol.
It's about awareness. Most Americans are online every day. Not everybody is watching prime time.

They did a huge publicity blitz for Grindhouse, with Tarantino and Rodriguez putting themselves everywhere talking about the movie, but that didn't raise the level of awareness needed.

I still think the counter-programming backfired for them... not for strictly religious reasons, but in terms of how people saw movies this last weekend. It was a family weekend. People went out to the theater as a family, with visiting parents or aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews... when you have a group like that, you're going to see the most safe movie for everybody concerned.
I don't know what the exact formula is, but we do know that 300 and Grindhouse were going after similar audiences. They had different release dates and different advertising strategies, but one was a huge hit and one underperformed.