Madman still loves The Loved Ones
Distributor Madman Entertainment is disappointed with the box office results of the Australian horror film The Loved Ones, but theatrical distribution manager James Hewison is confident that it will have a long life cycle.
“It’s absolutely heartbreaking. It’s disappointing for everyone, but particularly for (director) Sean (Byrne). But it still has a very substantial life cycle in terms of exploitation across many different platforms, and it will still have the Madman brand all over it because that’s the way we always planned it to be,” Hewison told Encore.
The Loved Ones made $256,000 in its first 11 days. According to Hewison, during its second week the film is still on 90 screens, but the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 this Thursday will put “considerable pressure” on screen space.
Questioned about the possible reasons for the film’s underperformance, Hewison believes the first and most obvious reason is that it was released against established American franchises such as Saw, Jackass and Paranormal Activity.
“I don’t think anybody expected Jackass 3D to be so successful. Any time of the year is incredibly competitive. We tried to choose the right date, particularly for a movie of this nature, and for the scale of release that we had always envisioned for The Loved Ones.
“Maybe we could have gone earlier, maybe we should have gone earlier, but we’re yet to have that proper internal meeting to do that kind of analysis. We backed the film because we had confidence in it, and given the substantial nature of the campaign we expected longevity in cinemas,” said Byrne.
Hewison admitted he was disappointed by the cool reception the film received from some of the country’s most prominent critics – the majority of them being well outside the target demographic.
“We had always anticipated that the mainstream media wouldn’t be the most obvious place where the film would find its natural home, and that’s why a lot of the activity in terms of the marketing was online, where we felt the audience was potentially.
“We did anticipate that it wouldn’t find favour everywhere, but that’s the nature of the genre too. Personally I was disappointed, because the film was a lot more than a straight genre film. The film marks the arrival of Sean Byrne, someone who’s got an extraordinary imagination and a very particular aesthetic and is able to work with a hybrid of both comedy and horror very successfully. Maybe some reviewers didn’t necessarily factor that into their reviews, but that’s ultimately their business,” explained Hewison.
The Loved Ones has been critically acclaimed at a number of international film festivals, and Byrne had talked about a potential prequel to tell the story of ‘Lola’ and ‘Daddy’. Hewison believes it’s too early to dismiss that possibility.
“Having been with Sean and the cast at a number of Q&As, I’m surprised at how many people asked him about that, they want to know what happens next. Sean was quite touched by the fact that people were so invested in those characters, and there might be life for them afterwards.
“It’s not over until the Fat Lady sings, and maybe Lola will be resurrected and emerge from a hospital outside of Melbourne somewhere,” said Hewison.
Hewison’s candor is to be admired. Still, Madman’s fatal mistake was waiting over 14 months since the film’s well-received premiere at Toronto, and constantly shifting the release date around and around. And around. And around. What were they honestly thinking, going up against Jackass 3D?
Ultimately they waited so long, the film had already been uploaded online to torrent sites in BluRay definition from overseas. (Next up: RED HILL).
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There’s all sorts of conjecture about the film’s bad Box Office results with everything from Saw to Jack-Ass being blamed, despite buckets of money being thrown at it by Madman.
Unfortunately I think the real issue lies with the film itself.
What sort of film is The Loved Ones?
It’s a torture porn movie with comedy – A hybrid genre film that has is similar with many other Aussie films that fail. It’s quirky.
Multiplex audiences don’t want to see quirky horror films, particularly films that contain large amounts of torture – those films are best aimed at arthouse crowds, which is where this should have played.
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Sean should take some solace in the fact that he’s an obvious Directing talent, but screenwriting might not be his thing…for now..that talent might evolve slowly. Lots of films can bomb at the box office, they can find a second home on DVD and might be further understood in years to come. My advice to Sean, get back on the wagon, suck it in and go and find a talented writer…get that right and you’ve got yourself a hit…the man can move a camera, I’ll give him that..
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The movie was up againist some tough competition no doubt, i think it would’ve gone a lot better if it wasn’t put up on torrents already.
A prequal will be amazing!
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Its the story, the script is where all the problems are. I just didn’t find it that scary, but the DOP work the Directing all quality, its a strange little film, but cinema history is littered with films that were misunderstood and then appreciated at a later date. I keep saying, Sean is a major Directing talent and a very nice bloke to boot. I think he needs a good writer, team him up with one of those and he’s off and running. the film is entertaining, the market is just swamped at the moment..the prequel idea…not bad.
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Just a crap film.
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This film has won some major international awards and has been critically acclaimed (for the most part) so it’s obviously not ‘a crap film’, just not to your taste Dingo. It’s a genre film and genre films are typically divisive. I’m not usually a fan of horror films, but I absolutely loved this one….a unique mix of quirkiness, tongue in cheek-horror and fun, with characters we actually give a shit about….I was gripped from beginning to end (especially at the end – the last act is phenomenal!!!). My friends loved it too…We couldn’t stop talking about it afterwards. It’s one of the best Aussie films I’ve seen and we’ve made some great ones. It deserved to do much better at the box office.
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Oh come on guys… outside of those who worked on it, or knows someone who did, or just want to support “our industry” crap. The films has a lot of flaws.
The acting was choppy and all over the place, the story was predictable at times and who cares about the main characters?
It was a big ask to make the genre work for Australian audiences.
boring.
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Trish…yeah you’re right, the film had some predictable moments and it was choppy in places and a big ask for Australian audiences. The main thing…why do we want films like this, I mean what do they say? How do they entertain? I found myself wondering why Sean Byrne, a talented Director, would want to jump on this horror bandwagon and maybe not tackle something else. I know film is a business, but who wants to be in the business of torture porn? its kind of ghoulish and a little stupid. “Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer” leaves every horror film I have ever seen for dead…every single one of them, its a shocking film that packs a punch.
Every time a horror film comes out I think how can these upstarts even think of topping this film? No Horror film even tries to explore the banality of evil like old Henry did, shot on 16mm for $110,000, banned almost everywhere, it also turned a profit.
Also, where would today’s entertainment industry be if we didn’t have serial killers and this strange fascination with ghoulish antics. Maybe aspiring filmmakers should just HDSLR their ass make these kinds of films that they feel appeal to this “very important” genre and try and see if they can top Henry the serial killer and they might find they can turn a profit. But don’t put your hand out for public funds unless you’ve got something highly original to say.
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Like a lot of recent Australian films, there’s a smarminess about how it was made and marketed, and I think that’s why it failed.
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By accident I came across this website while looking to see when “The Loved Ones” would get a dvd release in North America and it’s interesting to see the comments made about the movie. I do agree with the first contributor about the wait time that they had used before releasing it to theaters.. When he mentioned “Toronto” in his comments I had to use this as a mention in my comment.. When the film premiered at the Ryerson during the best part of the Toronto International Film Festival, the theater was not sold out, it didn’t even sell enough to open the top part of the Ryerson. But that was not necessarily a bad thing, the film as I learned about a year later during a repeat screening for Halloween, there was no trailer to promote the film and yet from the amount of people that attended the first showing and the repeat screening later that week via word of mouth.. The first peoples choice award for Midnight Madness went to the film.. So I knew it probably wouldn’t get a proper release in theaters outside of Australia but for a old school horror fan like me it saddens me that people may never know about the film, it deserves to be seen..
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