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Sony Pictures has rethought its approach to the October 28 opening of the Roland Emmerich-directed Anonymous, which originally was planned as a wide release. Instead, the studio is taking a platform approach and debuting in 250 theaters the drama that suggests William Shakespeare didn’t write all those plays — it was really a British earl. Concerned that a soft opening as a wide release would doom what one exec described as “a magnificent film,” the powers that be decided the movie should open only in major cities, hopefully building buzz and momentum in a gradual rollout to more theaters throughout November.
Sony Abruptly Switches To Platform Rollout For ‘Anonymous’
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Twas all the confusing commercials that doomed it.
In my opinion the most humorous trailer not to mention concept imaginable. Concerned soft opening means soft tracking. A pet project for Roland and a favour from colombia you’d imagine after all the money he’s minted for them. nothing wrong with that just an extremely strange and hard to pigeon hole project.
Uh oh.
When you make a “magnificent film” about a total and outrageous lie, what does your slander deserve?
Virtually most movies are fictional, so in your mind all of them would be slanderous? I don’t understand that. There are wish fulfillment movies, based-on-real-life ones, based-on-preexisting material and then we have fictional movies. Clearly, this movie is a “what if?” movie, it doesn’t claim to be based on actual events — just speculation and myths.
People should be fussing about “Anonymous” being any good or not. Screw the “Did Shakespeare write these plays or is it someone under a pen name?” debate.
When Sony goes as far as releasing educational materials to accompany this historically full-of-crap film, it’s a legitimate question.
Sony isn’t just treating this as a “what if” movie. They are distributing materials to school children asking them to explore the authorship issue. Based on the publicity Sony has been using for this film, I would bet their “educational” materials are inaccurate. I wonder if they claim that Charles Dickens was a doubter (he wasn’t) and that both of Shakespeare’s children could neither read nor write (Susanna signed her name).
Exactly. I subscribe to the Ebert school of thought. Review a film on how well it tells its story, not what the story was about or whether you agree with the idea or not.
I rarely wish a release ill but this is one case where I hope the movie dies a miserable death. Sick revisionism masquerading as drama. Robbing a dead literary genius of the fruits of his labor is simply beyond the pale.
Yes, a regular person could not have written those plays. It must have been a very rich person, born into privledge, who never had to work and was the son of two cousins marrying each other.
(Of course it could be a great movie too.)
As “what if” premises go, this is about as UN intriguing as it gets.
No surprise no one cares.
Went to a screening and loved it. Has a very appealing “Shakespeare In Love” quality and platforming to build momentum is the right way to go so that fans of the bard’s work can have time to evangelize the value of the film.
Plant.
Roland Emmerich is the worst director in Hollywood.
Worst plant comment ever.
The reviews have so far been surprisingly good so far, although most of these reviews do say the story is silly, if not ludicrous. The interviews that the filmmakers have been giving have been all over the map, claiming one minute that the film finally revealing the true identity of the author of Shakespeare’s plays, then acknowledging the next minute that the film is filled with historical inaccuracies because it’s just a story. But what is unforgivable is that Sony is submitting teaching materials to schoolchildren suggesting that there is some truth behind the lunatic conspiracy theory that inspired this film. (And it is a lunatic conspiracy theory no matter how many Supreme Court Justices now claim to believe it.)
Well is it true or not?
It is a damn movie. The creators felt it was a story to tell. It is entertainment not a factual documentary that the premise is absolutely true. And for the bashing that Sony helped out you forget movies are a business. If they didnt believe in the story and the filmmaker, I am damn well certain Sony wouldn’t add their money to it. I think changing the roll out is brilliant. The American movie goer needs help in finding great movies quickly or methodically. The battle for eyeballs is a war. And there are different stratagies to come out a victor. This is a smart move. But if it was 3500 screens or 250, this viewer will be there the first showing the first day. Robbie Goldstein
Rubbish Robbie. The business is and has always been about relationships. We all know how hard it is to platform these days and this film certainly screams wide release. Audience aren’t stupid, will smell this turkey and lack of confidence from Sony, and will stay away in droves.
So the premise is that Godzilla wrote Hamlet?
Just in time for Thanksgiving, Sony has decided to platform this turkey.
“Sure, Roland, that’s the ticket! We’re not worried about flushing marketing dollars down the toilet, we’re just worried about doing justice to your magnificent film!”
It’s hilarious how some sit there and call the premise of the film preposterous and label it “a piece of crap” and “revisionist” when the exact opposite is true. The authorship issue does need to be explored, I find it hilarious how Stratfordians always refuse to engage in any type of debate and become enraged when challenged on their (frankly ridiculous) views. These people are already gunning for this film simply because it challenges their view on the authorship issue and because it does not represent their own idea of what happened all those hundreds of years ago. Nevermind the fact that the real “Will Shakspeare” which they insist was such a literary genius was an illiterate who spoke a dialect that Londoners could barely understand and could even barely write his own name. In fact there actually is a great deal of circumstantial and other evidence supporting the premise of this film and I hope that Sony doesn’t just let this fade away because people should get to see it and if they so choose do the research themselves and decide for themselves instead of believing what others would forcefeed them.