‘Valkyrie’ Won’t Ride Until 2009
First it was scheduled like a summer blockbuster with a June 27 release. Then it looked like an Oscar contender targeted for October 3. As of today, Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise as a German officer in a plot to kill Adolph Hitler is an afterthought getting dumped on February 13 of next year.
The first assumption will be that the movie stinks. I expect a post to that effect from Jeff Wells any minute, but really it only means the studio has no faith in the movie. Zodiac was consigned to a February March release last year after being seen as an Oscar candidate for a while the year before. It was neither an Oscar contender nor a box office draw (perhaps because of the release date), but it was still one of the best movies of the year.
I don’t have anything near the same level of enthusiasm for Valkyrie, but we’ll see.
Source: Variety
Filed under: News, Upcoming
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Tom Cruise just can’t get a break anymore. It’s all because of the weird karma that he’s drawn.
Bad buzz can mean many things, but usually the studios read that as “difficult to sell.” Like TV networks, they tend to be giant wusses over anything that might require effort or cleverness to market.
Oh well.
Wow.
Of course, as you note, Craig, it could be a Zodiac situation.
Or maybe not.
It’s Tom Cruise. “Difficult to sell” Tom Cruise movies, even in such bad shape as he may be in at this point with many filmgoers, should be released in October.
February?
(Whoa, I hope I don’t sound like Jeff Wells. In the end, release dates don’t matter, just what’s on the screen.)
Not that I was really interested in this film anyway, it is a shame.
Agreed, Nick. I don’t have schadenfreude toward Tom Cruise, as many people do.
This is getting frustrating. I keep trying to defend this film, and now the studio undercuts me. Oh well…at least now I’ll have something to see in February.
Good news: now BODY OF LIES won’t have to compete for the same audience. When they announced its release as 10/10 (one week after Valkyrie), I had a feeling someone would blink and move one of the release dates to avoid cannibalizing.
Not to be a nitpicker, Craig, but ZODIAC was released in March, not February, but the point is the same.
Granted the examples of Zodiac and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. But with all due consideration, Yikes!
I love Tom Cruise. The actor.
Here you go:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/04/huge_valkyrie_m.php
“Like TV networks, they tend to be giant wusses over anything that might require effort or cleverness to market.”
Agree, even a fool could figure out that the best way to market this thing is to have several Vietnam era helicopters flying down LA streets busy with foot traffic (presumably they exist) playing Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries over loud speakers and directing bursts from high pressure hoses towards the fleeing citizenry.
But, sartre, what about the pigeons.
Oh, maybe you were never into The Animaniacs and have no idea what I’m talking about.
They moved it from October to February?! Oh, it’s in trouble. Jeff Wells or no.
Alison, sadly the reference is lost on me as I’ve not encountered The Animaniacs.
Well, maybe you’ll come across it one day, sartre. It was a riot.
I agree KB it’s in trouble in terms of box office and Oscars, my argument is that it doesn’t mean the movie is really no good. Those other things are studio problems, I only care what’s on the screen.