Insomniac wrote:Aili wrote:why would Nolan swear everyone involved to secrecy and then let the cat out of the bag a month early just to be at a festival he doesn't need, festivals are important for indies, not him.
Indies like Inherent Vice and Gone Girl?
NYFF isn't Sundance, you know.
Also, reluctant doesn't mean scared.
I think for both these films (unlike Interstellar) there is no built-in audience. Girl with a Dragon Tattoo made $102 million but had a budget of $90 million + all the extras of course. So it lost money. There is always a sort of built in audience for thrillers, so Gone Girl can benefit from that (and from readers who, unlike me, liked the book), but it is still a dicey proposition. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike are not box office draws, Fincher is to some degree but I bet that's a very expensive movie and they need to get bums in seats.
Inherent Vice? I'd say its box office prospects are non-existent. The Master (which was a great film but a lot of people hated it) only made $16 million domestic US. They didn't reveal the budget, but it was obviously high so it lost a ton of money. I like P.T. Anderson but he isn't anyone the public actually knows or goes out of their way to see his films. I love Joaquin Phoenix but most people can't stand him. He may be a NEGATIVE box office draw actually!
I think being in the festival may be in part for prestige purposes (which Nolan doesn't need), but also for $$$$$$. They need to increase public awareness of the two films, going into the competitive end-of-the-year. Sure they want Oscars otherwise they would not be releasing at the end of the year. But Inherent Vice (if you've read the book) and Gone Girl aren't the type of film that wins Oscars - no gravitas, no emotional pull.
So no automatic Oscar prospects to get attention and no box office stars to put bums in seats. I'm sure they'll play in as many festivals as possible to get media coverage.
Chris Nolan is to all intents and purposes paranoid: not a peep has slipped out from cast, crew, etc. about Interstellar. He does NOT want the audience getting spoilers before the film opens. And if it's shown in NY there will be millions of spoilers out there. He is a box office draw himself - the biggest one. Matthew McC has kept the lowest possible profile since the Oscars. He doesn't need the publicity, but he risks getting overexposed because he has had so much media coverage he wasn't even involved in, and they don't want to repeat the Anne Hathaway backlash for last year. McC was always a box office draw for romcoms (that's why the studios stuck him in them, women love him - women don't care one way or the other for Ben Affleck and I have never met a woman who didn't say about Joaquin Phoenix "ewwwww").
So Interstellar has built-in box office and doesn't need media hype in festivals. As for Oscars, yeah I think Chris Nolan does want an Oscar. He has been criticised in the past for having one-dimensional characters and being totally story driven. He said he cast McC because of Mud and if you have seen Mud, it's a very emotional film and McC has the extraordinary ability to create characters who are very emotional, who do things that would be unthinkable for a Hollywood Action Hero, but remain very "virile" and never fall into sentimental slop. From the trailers it's obvious that Coop is going to be a guy who is not at all a standard-issue Action Hero/Superhero type, stoic and (unbelievably) brave. That's already addressing some of the criticisms that Nolan heroes are opaque. McC has the most expressive face. The audience will know Coop and know what he's thinking and identify with him. And his adventure will provide the gravitas Oscars demand.