reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (02/05/86)
From: Peter Reiher <reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU> >There is a 1984 SF film called Runaway with Tom Selleck on cable >this month. I found it quite enjoyable and wonder whether it ever >made it into the cinemas. I do not remember it. Does anyone recall >whether it did? > >A related question: It often seems that good movies appear on cable >that have never played in the cinemas. How does this happen? "Runaway" was released in the Christmas season of 1984. That Christmas was a phenominally busy one for films (but not, alas, for good films). You probably missed "Runaway" in the confusion. Or, if you don't live in a fairly large city, "Runaway's" poor to mediocre revenues may have convinced the distributor not to show it elsewhere. There are a variety of reasons good films don't reach the theaters. Probably the most common is that the film is not considered marketable. Even after a film has been shot and edited, there are still many costs associated. Nowadays, it costs millions to advertise a film. If the studio has little confidence in a film, they may well just swallow their loss and not throw what would be, in their opinion, good money after bad. This is especially likely if the film only cost a couple million (or less) to shoot. I've seen several pretty good films at film festivals or previews which were never released, usually for this reason. (On the other hand, if the film cost $20 million to make, it *will* be released, no matter how bad. Spending two million in the hopes of recovering $10 million or so on the turkey is a rather different proposition than gambling more than the cost of the print.) Some films are independently made and never find a distributor. The owners of the film then make what they can by selling it to cable and videocassette. Other films had test engagements in a few cities and flopped, and are then sent out to video pasture. Some films are really terrible, and could not make a nickle in the theaters. Even these have a marginal value on TV. Once in a while, legal problems keep a film out of theaters. I find the growth of cable and videocassettes heartening, in this respect if not others. Many films which would otherwise disappear and gather dust on studio shelves now are released to cable. I get to see films I wouldn't see otherwise.