|
AMERICAN audiences are avoiding films about the
Iraq war and the post-9/11
“war on terror.” The theory is that nobody wants to pay
admission to hear a story about the Middle East when
everybody’s emotionally wiped out by the stories they
hear on the news.
So the producers of Stop-Loss, an
acclaimed movie starring Ryan Phillippe, must be running
scared. They might deny this, but their actions speak
otherwise. The film’s marketing campaign is so
aggressive and borderline deceptive that it has an air
of desperation to it.
The market for
Iraq movies is so small that
Jon Stewart did a
Bush-like riff about it from the Oscar stage: “If we
stay the course and keep these movies in the theaters,
we can turn this around. I don’t care if it takes 100
years. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden
the audience. We cannot let the audience win.”
The news stories that drive away audiences aren’t
just war news stories but economy news stories, too.
“What happens to the box office in times of recession
and economic uncertainty is that people go to the movies
to escape,” says Paul Dergarabedian of the box-office
tracking firm Media by Numbers. “Generally, the 9/11
movies don’t fall into that category of escapism.”
“It’s not just
Iraq and war movies but intense, dark movies in
general,” Dergarabedian says.
Consider these box-office numbers: A Mighty
Heart, a recounting of the murder in
Pakistan
of journalist Daniel Pearl, was released last June and
made about $9 million. In the Valley of Elah was
released September 14. Despite good notices and an
Oscar-nominated performance by
Tommy Lee Jones, it
grossed slightly less than $7 million. The star-studded
action thriller The Kingdom, about a bombing in
the Middle East, came out two weeks later. It made $47
million, from a budget of $80 million. Rendition,
about uses of torture, with
Reese Witherspoon
and Jake Gyllenhaal, took in $9 million. Lions for
Lambs, with
Robert Redford,
Tom Cruise and
Meryl Streep, made
$15 million, $20 million less than its budget. Grace
Is Gone, starring
John Cusack as a
man grieving over the death of his wife in
Iraq,
made $50,000.
Brian DePalma’s
Redacted, about the Iraq war and the media, earned
$65,000.
Stop-Loss
is Kimberley Peirce’s drama about an
Iraq
vet (Phillippe)
who is ordered to go back and refuses. The title refers
to a military provision that can result in a soldier’s
being ordered back into active duty at any time.
The film was delayed from autumn release, to put
some distance between Stop-Loss and the Middle
East-themed movies that bombed. Peirce has taken the
extra time to go on the offensive. The acclaimed creator
of Boys Don’t Cry has been on a road trip to
colleges and theaters to persuade cinema owners to book
the film and youths to see it. “This is unheard of,”
said Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations, another
box-office-tracking firm.
The design of the movie’s poster glosses over the
war content. One must look closely and carefully to
discern the military theme. The handsome young cast, in
casual, cool clothes, sits on the hood of a car while
fuzzy images of soldiers, stars and stripes fill the
background.
The military-muting whitewash is so transparent
that the showbiz parody site datelinehollywood.com
posted a fake news story: “A class action lawsuit has
been filed on behalf of America’s teenage girls against
MTV Films for deceptive marketing of the new movie
Stop-Loss. ‘The posters make it look like it’s about
a bunch of hot Abercrombie models making out, but really
the movie is about politics and other lame stuff,’ said
Amber Elleman, the 14-year-old lead plaintiff.”
Of the poster, Bock says, “I don’t think it’s
fooling anybody.”
“The subject matter is intertwined with the war.
There are no bones about it,” Bock says, calling the war
theme “the bottom of the barrel of what people want to
see.”
The trailer, which has bombarded cinemas in the
last few weeks, isn’t as sugarcoated. It emphasizes the
buddy aspect of the film and the girlfriend aspect in
equal proportion to the soldier angle.
Online, the film marketers are gunning hard.
Besides the inevitable official site, Stop-Loss
has pitched its tent on MySpace and Facebook. The
social-networking web sites are rich with the youngest
members of the “prime demographic” that distributors
crave (ages 18 to 49), and the film’s promoters are
vigorously recruiting “friends.” This tactic isn’t new,
but other films have used it much less assertively.
The single-mindedness hasn’t gone unnoticed by
its targets. As one observant “friend” on the MySpace
page asks, “Are you guys going around adding everyone on
MySpace?”
On the MySpace page, lots of nonmilitary-oriented
pictures of the young cast members dot the page, along
with a stills gallery containing no battle scenes.
Comments like “I can’t wait to see this movie! It’s
gonna be great!” are common. It also features many
“friends” who have already seen the film and love it.
The atmosphere is easygoing and friendly, in contrast to
the subject matter.
The Facebook page is more up-front about the
military content. Its message board is much less crowded
than the one on the MySpace page. It features links to
many short videos about the movie and posts from Peirce
herself.
If Stop-Loss scores at the box office,
it’ll be a turning point, not in the war but in the
tolerance for war stories among moviegoers. Bock doesn’t
hold out much hope. He believes it is too soon, with the
war still going on, and for such a long time. Since it
opened in North American theaters in late March, it has
pulled only $8,213,160 at the box office.
“Maybe a few years down the line, if things are
resolved, people will find these films again,” he says.
“They’re trying to force a perspective on people. That
isn’t working; it isn’t clicking with audiences.”
Bock also says that no matter how good the films
are, they can’t compete with the immediacy of TV news
and online journals.
“Watching soldiers blog is much more current than
any film can ever be,” Bock says. “If you want to blame
something [for the films’ failures], blame the
Information Age and how fast we receive updates from the
front lines.” |
