Then perhaps you could tell me about the huge marketing campaign behind Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, a three-hour film in Hindi, that made it 20 times as successful.
Even I heard about Idiocracy, and I hate Mike Judge.
Care to find me any popularly-released trailers? How much marketing money was spent on the film? How many markets was it released in? It’s absolutely common knowledge—at least among people who pay attention—that this film was, for whatever reason, given no support whatsoever by the studio. See, for example, here, here, here, or here.
Well, are you Indian? I bet if you were connected in some way with Indian culture and lived in a community with a lot of Indian people you’d know all about it.
Well, let’s go to your own links for answers.
Hmm, the studio found out that its intended audience wouldn’t watch it and decided not to do a campaign to try to go beyond that audience, based on past evidence that Judge’s fans would find him. Where are Judge’s fans located? Well, since the film was released in 130 theaters in only seven metro areas, it must have played extensively in suburban multiplexes. So how is this an example of films not being released in suburbs? Remember, this is the OP’s example on the OP’s subject, not mine. I took what I was given.
So you tell me. How does Idiocracy’s experience not back up what every knowledgeable poster here has said about the lack of support for small films in standard cinemas? If you don’t like Idiocracy as an example, how much advertising and marketing support do other comparable independent films get? Where do you see trailers for them outside of the art houses? What is the size of the audience for them?
Size matters, but so does distribution of population. A metro area today likely has three times the population of the central city, so it undoubtedly has more potential viewers for independent films in its suburbs. But the central city is maybe 200 sq. mi. while the suburbs are maybe 2000 sq. mi. The concentration of viewers in any one place is just too low to make these films generally viable. Independent film viewers have to find the films, that’s just a fact of life. Theater owners are naturally going to gravitate toward films that are guaranteed to fill their theaters. Studios, distributors, and advertisers will key their money in the same way.
None of this says bubkes about whether suburban audiences are dumb.
I never said it did. :rolleyes:
This reminds me of the time I went to the French crime film The Trouble with Harry- about ten minutes in, a couple is walking out of the theatre. The man is browbeating the woman to which she replied "the paper said ‘thriller’, it didn’t say ‘thriller in French’! 
The Queen is showing in our town (less than 100K). It’s at the art theater, which generally shows all of those smaller movies. So, I live in a small city, but I can see any of the limited-distribution films.
All of which begs the question: If mom and dad have time for the mass-market fare, can’t they find time for the occasional “thought-provoking” indie? Plenty of moms and dads–many of whom possess advanced degrees and are supporters of the arts–go out to see movies by themselves. Had they more interest in indie films, said films would be more available in the burbs. The bottomline seems to be that the interest just isn’t there, so the indies typically aren’t shown in the burbs.
My argument isn’t that people in the burbs are “dumb,” it’s that there is something about the suburban lifestyle, the mindset, that fundamentally reorders priorities, tastes and interests. And not all of that can be attributed to pressing schedules and children.
Within 25 miles (about as far as I’ll drive out here) of the suburb I now inhabit, “The Queen”, about to enter its fourth month of distribution, is playing in 14 theaters.
In my old, east coast suburb, there are 5 theaters within 25 miles, showing it at least twice a day. I usually wouldn’t drive that far back there, but two of the theaters, in the heart of the suburbs, are within 10 miles, which I would drive.
So to respond to the OP’s specific query:
You live around a bunch of people with pedestrian tastes. Move to a coast.
Or they wait until DVD. Anyone have DVD rental stats on these indie films? I know my husband and I reserve our precious babysitting dollars for big special effects eye candy, and wait to Netflix the other stuff. Our theater visits in 2006 were Superman Returns (IMAX 3-D - to which we brought Kid A and left Kid B with a babysitter), The Fountain and Pan’s Labyrinth (The last two Kid A was paid to sit Kid B.). Children of Men is on our list, but, ironically enough, is only playing in one small, uncomfortable theater in our small town of Chicago. I hope it expands soon.
Meanwhile, my Netflix queue is bloated with 2005 offerings like The Dying Gaul, *Chumscrubber *and The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Did they ever play around here? I don’t know. Probably at The Music Box or some other horrid little dungeon of a theater. Don’t care. I’ll watch 'em in my living room while the baby’s asleep. (Just as soon as we get through all those *Scrubs *DVD’s!)
Uh, No. Mom and Dad don’t have time for the mass-market fare. They don’t have time for movies, period. That was my point, in the burbs at the ginormous multiplexes most of the audiences are families with kids to see family films or teens. Now, TEENS I could make the argument for not appreciating arthouse cinema. On the blue moon that Joe and Susie Blow do have a free night, sans kids and the will to sit through a movie… they head to the multiplex and find the landscape dominated by what does sell consistantly which is movies for teens, family films and huge releases that are everywhere. I’ve seen maybe 5 movies this past year on the big screen. All of them on nights when my in-laws could watch the kids and we ended up going down the street to the nice three screen drive in (rural area). No arthouse flicks available because they can’t keep a 3 screen drive in open by counting on my 5 movie nights a year. They count on the hordes of 16-20 year olds that are there Every Week as well as the families who pack Everybody into the car to see Cars, or March of the Penguins ect. You seem to be looking for some dulling effect that suburbia has on the intellect but what I’m telling you is that it is what it is. Simple demographics and lifestyle differences that make businesses appeal to the largest available market in their specific area.
That seems to be more a matter of marketing, though. If the issue is your lifestyle and the age of the kids (and that is an issue. When my kids were little, I went for three years telling people the last movie I’d seen in a theater was Spartacus*), then you’re free time becomes a fairly precious commodity. You’re not likely to take a chance on a movie you’re not familiar. You’re not liekly to see any trailers or commercials for these films, so you’ve nothing but your trust in the local alt-rag movie critic, which is never well-placed.
*As a further indication of how difficult it is to keep up with movies when you’ve got little ones, I’ll add that at intermission, I was walking outside to smoke, and saw a couple coming in with an infant, no more than 8 weeks. They bought three tickets and proceeded to theater #6 for the last show of the night. It was Silence of the Lambs.
It certainly does. The whole thread so far seems to be:
Carnac the Magnificent: Why aren’t more thought-provoking films popular enough with suburbanites to receive wider distribution there?
Everyone else: Well, see, those films aren’t widely distributed in the suburbs because they’re not very popular…
The same could be said about the following:
Why are the fine arts in urban areas?
Why are the trendy upscale restaurants in urban areas?
It’s not because the adults in the suburbs have been dumbed down and don’t appreciate fine arts and fine food. It’s because their spare time has been taken over by families and home ownership.
Compare a Starbucks coffee shop at 7 p.m. in the burbs to one in the city. The city one will be filled with adults lounging about reading or sitting with their laptops. The one in the burbs will be filled with high schoolers doing their homework.
No, there are two arguments, running concurrently:
First: “There aren’t enough people in the not-cities.” Period. (Lots of big suburbs or “metropolitan areas” do show these movies, so I don’t agree with the “suburban” vocab)." Back to the 2% post: 2% of Chicago is a hell of a lot of people. 2% of Greenville isn’t. If only 2% of any area is going to go see a movie, it doesn’t make sense to pay to bring it to a place where 2% is in the double digits.
Second: There are other people saying that demographics differ, as well. We’re pulling all sorts of stats out our asses, true. But does anyone really argue that there AREN’T more single adults and more affluent people in major metropolitan areas? More people who can afford to see more movies, period, and who don’t have to choose which films are “worth” seeing in the theater? And that more people seeing more movies is going to mean that more movies (titles) will be shown? And finally, that most teenagers (argued to be the majority of movie goers outside of cities) are just not into arty films due to a lack of maturity and patience?
I’m the only one really arguing what you say. And that’s based not on my experience with movie theaters, but with movie rentals. Based on that disaster, I’d have to say that *that *community (Frankfort, IL, pop 10,000ish) was not, in fact, as interested in arty movies as they stated when questioned. I base that on my actually bringing the material to the marketplace and the failure of it to move off the shelves.
I’ve seen every single one and each one sucked.
From what I’ve been reading, “Idiotacracy” seems to have been killed by the studio, in a manner in which many a film has been killed before: no media support, very limited release in nothing markets, etc. I don’t see how that particular film fits the complaint of the OP because it seems that nobody was allowed to see it - not even “sophisticated” urbanites.
The thing is, you’re looking at a rather small selection of those films available to suburbanites and generalizing an entire population’s movie tastes based upon the titles you see at the local GooglePlex. You are also ignoring the fact that the GooglePlex’s follow a business model designed to maximize profits - and those people who maximize profits are concession-buying teenagers, not weight-watching adults who sneak in their own food.
And you see the question answered in your response? 
What are you talking about? Children of Men is playing at the River East 21 in a large, comfortable theater. We’ve seen it twice and both shows we attended, and many other showings that we tried to get into, have been sold out.
I agree with you about The Music Box though. We hate seeing movies there, though we did see a marathon of all 3 Lord of the Rings films last week. Luckily we brought pillows to sit on.
We were lucky enough to see Idiocracy in the theater, enjoyed it quite a bit, and though it’s not quite as good as Office Space, I hope it gains a cult following like OS. With all the corporate-bashing it does, it’s no wonder it got killed.
:dubious: Thanks for supporting them financially anyway. Keep it up.
You do have to admire the determination, though.