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With Lionsgate expanding and landing a $340 credit line, it’s easy for the studio to forget about its fanbase. Or is it? As I reported previously, horror aficionados are furious that Lionsgate’s Joe Drake is moving away from this genre of films in favor of more mainstream fare like Tyler Perry. (This month, Lionsgate signed hit factory Perry to a new 3-year first-look deal to distribute at least 3 more Perry films — after releasing 5 Perry pics since 2005.) Well, this weekend Lionsgate officially dumped Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train. And not just into a tiny 102 theaters but humiliatingly into the dollar and second run theaters where it made $32,000 ($313 per screen). Now fans are worried Lionsgate will do the same to other films they’re hotly anticipating, like Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Burrowers. All are ex-Lionsgate head Peter Block’s films, so Drake has a vested interest in making Block’s movies look bad at the box office even if he may be doing it for moral reasons. (I’ve long campaigned that execs should look inward before releasing “Hard R” horror films, especially those that feature torture porn.) As one horror fan asked me, “The question is, why does Lionsgate want the movie to make less money than it would normally in limited theaters? Something seems off.” The answer may well be studio politics.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Maybe “Train” sucks? Have you considered that?
You would think – you would THINK – that Lionsgate would be cognizant of the cautionary tale of another mini-major to do pretty much the exact same thing over the last ten years. To NOT fall into the gears of the New Line System of Self-Destruction. But I suppose there’s really no shortage of the dangerous concoction that mixing together ego, arrogance and stupidity creates.
The answer isn’t just politics, but available theaters. Look at how many films are in the marketplace right now, all fighting for screens.
So if horror fans are in such an uproar about Midnight Meat Train getting dumped, why didn’t they seek it out and pay to see it, even if it was in discount theaters?
Any profit participants in this movie should be filing suit, since it’s obvious Lionsgate is doing its best to make sure it doesn’t make any money. It’s always difficult to prove damages, but they could make some noise.
Yeah, I can’t imagine why LG would not want a movie with the worst title in history and a Paris Hilton movie on 4,000 screens.
@Terry
Maybe “Train” sucks? Have you considered that?
Got to be another reason: if Hollywood studios and distributors were to sideline every bad movie that get made, about six films would get into general release a year.
That said, as Clive Barker’s works have never made a good film (Nightbreed being almost good), this isn’t that surprising.
Yeah because Tyler Perry movies are such a big hit.
I swear do these executives smoke crack every day? They sure do a lot of dumb business moves.
Horror flicks can make a lot of money and last longer than non original films.
*sighs*
Midnight Meat Train is only available at 102 theatres across the entire nation. I could not find it within a 40 mile search of Washington DC. My friends in Philly, Pittsburgh and New York City couldn’t find it. Where is it playing? Puerto Rico and Alaska only??
Let a movie be seen and live or die on its own. I hate studio politics getting in the way of that.
Scott Weinberg from Cinematical got it right on this one in his review of the movie:
The Midnight Meat Train is so absolutely a “horror fans only” experience that I’m not surprised that Lionsgate wants to give it only a cursory theatrical release before dumping it into DVD. I do not mean that as a knock on the film. As a matter of fact, this is certainly one of the most effective horror films of the year — but man, oh man… it would be a really tough sell on 1,200 screens. It’s kind of an unfair catch-22 where certain horror movies are concerned: if you “go dark,” dabble in grimness, and don’t cater to the under-18 crowd, then there’s a good chance your “hardcore” horror movie will debut on DVD (at best) or, like The Mist and The Ruins, arrive in theaters very quietly.
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/07/26/sdcc-review-the-midnight-meat-train/
Where are these theaters playing it? I couldn’t find it here in DC and my friends couldn’t find it in Philly, Pittsburgh or New York City! Is it only playing in Puerto Rico and Alaska??
A movie should be allowed to live or die through reviews and audience turnout. Studio Politics screwing with this only robs us viewers in the end.
Couple things.
Let’s not hate on Tyler Perry. He has a strong devoted fan base that drives all of his movies to profitability. So for Lionsgate to lock him down is wise.
2nd. Horror fans couldn’t seek out this film because it was nowhere to be found. There wasn’t even a screening here in New York City. So don’t blame horror fans. Especially when studios use horror films to make a quick buck often.
Joe Drake should also be called out on his producing involvement on “The Strangers” which was released this summer with no horror competition and made money.
Also why not just release the movie straight to DVD? “Wrong Turn 2″ was direct to DVD and it was a success. Why embarass this film as if it just was done to prove a point or piss someone off.
Finally if Lionsgate is in fact neglecting horror, they better hope the “Saw” well doesn’t dry this year. Especially since “Saw 5″ is going up against “HSM3″. Looks like Jigsaw will be defeated by the Disney Wildcats.
And Nikki, Hard R films are not all bad. “The Exorcist” was a Hard R.
Honestly, Nikki. You posted something based solely on fan speculation?
I’m not criticizing your journalism, but fans are not particularly credible. They constantly make big deals about nothing. Exaggeration is the only constant among communication from the various fandoms.
First of all, Lionsgate is not going to be getting much (if any) revenue from this release. Discount theaters keep almost all of the ticket price. The rental fees are very low. Not so for a first run theater where as much as 80% of the box office goes to the distributor during the first week and declines slowly in the exhibitor’s favor each week.
The movie is sh!t. It’s a loser. It’s probably being released only for contractual reasons. Dig a little deeper, Nikki, and I’m fairly certain this is just plain vanilla contract compliance for a film Lionsgate would have preferred not to release at all. This isn’t unusual.
What is the usual is ignorant fans claiming conspiracy or something else equally ignorant when they don’t understand what the hell they’re talking about.
For example, Zyzzyx Road. It was easy for CHUD to publish snarky comments about the “lowest grossing film in history,” but those comments emphasized the ignorance of that website.
“The Midnight Meat Train” is just another case of too many conspiracy theorists and not enough actual conspiracies.
I think it’s worth noting that Lionsgate pulled the rug out from under fans in some markets at the last second. The film was supposed to open in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, but a few days beforehand, it was yanked off our local schedule…and in our case, it did NOT get put into any discount theater. We just didn’t get it released here at ALL.
Is Midnight Meat Train even playing in LA beyond its midnight show at the Nuart. That’s past my bedtime.
It’s not as if Lionsgate was founded to serve horror fans and is suddenly abandoning its mandate. The distributor formerly known as Cinepix and CFP distributed a variety of specialized and art movies for years before they made what can be considered a fairly recent detour into the horror genre. And they likely did that because those films were suddenly popular with wider audiences again and they represented an opportunity. The ensuing glut of horror films from several studios subsequently made it a tougher marketplace in which they suddenly found themselves overexposed. Now they are attempting to make a correction by diversifying their slate. Seems like good business sense to me. It’s a tough racket.
Okay now, I can see being upset about MMT, but Tyler Perry has a record of hits that anyone else in LA would give their eyeteeth for, so don’t knock him.
Since, as you admit, you’ve campaigned against hard R horror films, why complain now that Lionsgate is trying to take the company into a classier direction?
Talk about hypocracy…
I think there’s a very simple reason why the movie was buried: the title. I saw the trailer for this back in February, and as soon as the narrator announced the title, the audience started cracking up – which, I have to guess wasn’t the intended effect based on the tone of the rest of the trailer. What studio wants to back a horror movie that sounds like a porn-knock-off? If it wasn’t a good movie anyway, then the new studio head absolutely made the right decision in avoiding the assured embarassment that would have come with the movie and its goofy title… just as the studio was right to get rid of the original studio head who approved such an obvious (meat) train-wreck.
there is something more to this story, dig deeper.
My Main problem with the lack of a wider release are the overlapping fan bases that would have supported the movie. First you have horror movie fans who eagerly anticipate any true horror movie. You also have Clive Barker fans who keep hoping for movie adaptations that actually work, and with Barker and his production company involved this could be the start. Thirdly are fans of asian director Ryuhei Kitamura, who has made many inroads with his body of work from japan, and this is his first american movie. So with a real marketing campaign, and really nothing huge. Hell ComiCon was last week, a perfect place to sell this flick. coulda worked.
This guy hit it right on the head: http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=7190
What the F—! We need more R-Rated horror films damn it! I’m sick of these pussy pg-13′s being shoved down our throats. F the new LIONSGATE. and F Joe Drake trying to kill Horror.
Mark, I saw the movie today at the Carmike 10 (a discount house) in Birmingham, Alabama. It is a very well made, intelligent and genuinely suspenseful horror film. It is atypical of the current slate of horror films you see from the genre division (Screen Gems, Fox Atomic, et al) which makes it harder for the marketing people to sell. An unfortunate truth in today’s competitive film business.
This is a travesty. It’s not playing in Los Angeles. It’s not playing in New York. It’s not playing anywhere in the Northeast. It’s playing two shows a day in the middle of nowhere (trust me– look it up on the map on IMDB). Joe Drake just took a big shit on Lionsgate’s bread-and-butter horror/genre audience. Good luck to him making up that money with dogs-to-be, like, say, THE SPIRIT. And good luck to him not thinking that genre fans aren’t going to remember this.
I’m a horror fan. I’m a Clive Barker fan. I would have loved to have seen this film this weekend. I can’t. Joe Drake must be following the Toby Emmerich “horror doesn’t make any money” playbook. Let’s see how far that gets him. And Lionsgate.