In the last installment of "Film Critics and the Film Industry," the film critics reacted to the industry's decision to withhold press screenings. Now, in part three of the series, critics and industry executives test how much influence criticism has on the moviegoers.
The public and critical tumult surrounding the release of "The Da Vinci Code" changed the way people understood what goes into creating a film's success or failure.
The New York Times ran an article titled, "Studios Turn Thumbs Down on Film Critics" soon after the release of "The Da Vinci Code." It delved into the idea that industry executives don't need critics to sell a movie. And in the first half of 2006, there was mounting evidence telling them that their supposition was correct.
According to the Times, three movies - "When A Stranger Calls," "Underworld: Evolution," and "Madea Family Reunion" - reached the top box office spot without screening for critics.
Critics understood their lacking influence, and they were usually the first to admit it. Newsweek film critic David Ansen did so in a feature he contributed to in Cineaste.
"It seems every year, the big wannabe blockbusters, with their $40 million marketing campaigns, become more and more critic-proof," Ansen wrote. "It simply didn't matter what anybody had to say about 'Mission: Impossible 2.' Its success was eerily predetermined: Paramount succeeded in marketing a commodity the nation felt obliged to see, don't ask me why."
What exactly was the motivation behind "critic-proofing?" A need for control, of course. The film industry already manipulates most of the movie-making process. What it still doesn't have complete leverage over are the critics. While some are willing to bend before the industry's wishes - critic circles call these reviewers "blurb whores" - most film critics are unwilling to sell themselves and their words to the film industry.
In 2001, Sony Pictures had difficulty getting the critics to say what it wanted them to. So, the distributor fashioned its own critic, David Manning from the Ridgefield Press. According to an article on the BBC's Web site, Manning "supposedly called Heath Ledger 'this year's hottest new star' for his role in 'A Knight's Tale,' said 'The Animal' was 'another winner' and 'Hollow Man' was 'one hell of a scary ride.'"
This tactic didn't work out so well for Sony Pictures. According to the BBC, the critic was exposed as a film industry concoction, and the distribution company was taken to court. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl approved a settlement in 2005, requiring Sony Pictures to pay $1.5 million.
In light of the Manning incident, executives decided to stick with its initial tactic: to avoid bad press, simply bypass it. According to Rolling Stone's film critic Peter Travers, the film industry executives do everything in their power to package and repackage a potentially bad flick.
"A marketing exec who wishes to remain anonymous recently laid out the [movie selling] strategy: the suits meet. If they decide the movie blows, they brainstorm about how to package it," Travers wrote in a feature entitled "Critic Proof?" "That costs money - the average marketing budget is $55 million - mostly spent on creating those ads on TV and the Internet that make the junk smell pretty."
At the turn of the new millennium, it seemed as though the film industry was in the midst of an experiment motivated by the desire to know whether the press did in fact affect the box office numbers. Older theories affirmed print journalism's importance.
In Christian Metz's psychoanalytic work "The Imaginary Signifier," he dubbed film criticism the institution's "third machine after the one that manufactures the films, and the one that consumes them, the one that vaunts them, that valorizes the product, writings on film become another form of cinema advertising."
The book's first English translation was published in 1977, a time when nearly all film criticism appeared in newspapers or magazines. Fast forward 30 years, and that's no longer the case. The advent of public Internet usage and a growing online film community democratized criticism, giving online critics just as much reach as the print critics appreciated within a governed system.
Working outside that system gave the online film critics an advantage: they could garner a following by exploring niche demographics. Some Web sites strictly cover horror films, while others like Moviemom.com approach film criticism from a parent's perspective.
While the industry didn't abandon the press completely - requisite flatteries and celebrity interviews were still thrust upon critics - it wasn't working to foster a better relationship with them, either.
The film industry of the past could be counted on to provide papers with approximately $1 billion in advertising each year. But, The New York Times reported in May 2006, "the industry cut back newspaper advertising last year - down $60 million compared with the year previous - the first time in five years, according to TNS Media Intelligence, a market research firm."
The same article also mentioned Fox Film Entertainment's plan to release several films without a print advertising budget. Fox Atomic, the division managing these releases, would sell to the teenage audience, a demographic not known for its interest in newspapers.
Check Thursday's issue of The Eagle for the final installment of "Film Critics and the Film Industry." It will highlight "Snakes on a Plane" and why that might have been the one film appropriate to pass over film critics.
