Some rather interesting tidbits from around the internet about the goings-on with Singerman, the DVD, Warner Brothers, etc. that dont quite deserve their own postings, but are none the less still intriguing to read.
Gasp! Even more shady marketing from WB to sell their DVD's? Shmuel Tennenhaus has a theory about something fishy going on over on YouTube, and it seems to have some merit. [Cost Per News]
Apparently there are some BIG problems with some of the DVD's in the "Superman: Ultimate Collector's Edition" Box Sets. And we mean besides that DVD they shoe-horned in there with Singerman on it to try and help boost it's sales numbers. [DigitalBits]
Singerman's box office apparently wasn't the only thing that we were expecting to be "bigger." Those Hi-Def DVD's show EVERYTHING, don't they? [Defamer]
You know how Singerman having a kid in the film really sucked? Well Singer doesn't care, and he wants to give you a whole lot more of him in the sequel! Better hide your musical instruments! [Rotten Tomatoes]
An amusing review of the Singerman HD DVD: "Bryan Singer's 'Superman Returns' is instead best described as an unapologetic cinematic love letter to Richard Donner's 1978 blockbuster 'Superman: The Movie.' Never have I seen a movie so in love with another movie -- I'm sure if Singer could have somehow CGI'd Christopher Reeve and Kate Bosworth together, and had them spawn bald children that looked like a cross between Margot Kidder and Gene Hackman, he would have done it."[High-Def Digest]
OK, so which one of you anonymous commenters is a TV critic for The Boston Herald? [BostonHerald.com]
In case you've been living under a rock the past few weeks, you might've missed that Singerman was released on DVD yesterday along with a slew of other DVD's that actually relate to the character we know as Superman. Like any other big budget film, ads were all over the place for that one last grab at revenue from the rather lucrative home video market.What really caught our attention was not the volume of ads for the Singerman DVD, but one particularly egregious piece that WB tried to pass off as something charitable, but came off looking about as disingenuous and sleazy as you can possibly get.
On Monday's edition of the Hollywood gossip show "Access Hollywood," sandwiched in between advertisements for the Singerman DVD aired the following piece featuring Singerman star Brandon Routh at a children's hospital.
On the surface you may be thinking, "what's wrong with that? He's visiting sick children." Which any other time, it may have been just that. But given the timing of this segment (the day before the Singerman DVD goes on sale) and the way it's presented by the AH hosts, it's rather obvious that this was solely done for the sake of selling DVD's, which if you ask us pretty damn exploitive and in very poor taste. Where's the evidence for that, you ask? Well consider this?
C'mon let's be real, it's aired the evening before the DVD release, it's screaming marketing ploy.
After the teaser for the segment aired and before the segment itself, there's a Singerman DVD commercial. (you can see these in beginning of the clip)
the female host shills the "2 disc Special Edition DVD" coming out before they introduce the segment.
When the hosts introduce the segment, there's a picture of the DVD on the 20 ft tallvideo screen behind them.
Billy Bush makes sure to tell us that "they asked him to do this months ago" so we're not to think this just came up out of the blue, which might've meant it was ya know, spontaneous and somewhat sincere. Of course they asked him months ago, when they planned the rest of the DVD marketing. Duh.
look at the huge team of people that are there with Routh to film the segment. If he was just coming to cheer these kids up, why did the cameras need to be there in the first place?
the kids in the hospital are WATCHING THE DVD's!!! And Routh makes sure to point that out for us.
Look, and we'll make this really clear, this isn't a shot at Brandon Routh. From all accounts he seems to be a nice guy, though he's been known to have his moments. He's obviously got to go along with this sort of thing to fulfill his PR requirements, and he seemed to actually care about the kids. Who should be taken to task are the marketing people at WB who were trying to pass this "gesture" off as being something genuine on the studio's behalf.
You want to do something meaningful? Do this 6 months from now, or in the months in between the theatrical release and the video game/DVD when you're not peddling anything, and don't do it with the camera crew. Hell if you REALLY want to make a difference in those kids lives, instead of giving them posters and crappy DVD's, why don't you donate some of your precious revenue from those DVD sales to the hospital to ease the burden of paying for the care of those kids?
Last time I checked, Superman didn't seek recognition or attention for his good deeds. He just went about his business happy to know he was making the world a better place. Then again, its not like these guys seem to know much about Superman anyway so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
We stopped looking at theater counts for Singerman here a long while ago since they really haven't been relevant once the film left general theater distribution. However in just so happening to look at the theater counts for the upcoming weekend, this stuck out like a sore thumb. The turtle that was Singerman FINALLY passes the big $200 million mark after 17 long weekends, and NOW it looks like Warners is finally letting it die in peace.
It dropped 262 theaters this weekend and will only be playing in 41, a reduction of a whopping 86.5%. That seems like a bit of an extreme drop compared to its previos weekends. Which now leaves us wondering just how much exactly "Big Brother" paid TO exhibitors to keep the film running in their dollar theaters so the film could reach $200 million? Since now that its hit the mark, its getting dropped like it has the plague.
While we still dont think a potential sequel hinged on that $200 million amount, it appears obvious there was some incentive on the studios part to hit that milestone, if only to save face perhaps.
Some rather interesting tidbits from around the internet about the goings-on with Singerman, the DVD, Warner Brothers, etc. that dont quite deserve their own postings, but are none the less still intriguing to read.
