What do you do if you’re a studio with a project that has celebrated director Werner Herzog reimagining the absolutely bonkers cult film “Bad Lieutenant” with an A-list cast that includes Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes and Val Kilmer? If you’re First Look, you pretty much dump it directly to DVD/BluRay.
The studio has announced that Herzog’s film, “Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans” will be released to home video on February 23, 2010 (check out the amusing Russian poster). With a limited theatrical already release penciled in for November 20th, we can’t remember the last time a studio announced the home video release of a film almost a month before it’s due to hit cinema screens. With this news, we’re going to guess that the theatrical release will probably be strictly a NY/LA only affair. We don’t see First Look striking up too many prints to send around the country if it’s going to be on Blockbuster shelves and in Netflix queues three months later.
We think this is a bummer move by First Look who clearly haven’t been been looking at what’s been developing in theaters over the past few weeks. As Paramount and IFC has shown with “Paranormal Activity” and “Antichrist”, audiences are craving original, out there films. If First Look had bothered to open their Internet browsers, they would’ve noticed a good share of buzz for “Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans” had already developed based on its utterly loony trailer alone. The film has Nicolas Cage at his most unhinged in years, talking to imaginary lizards and seeing souls dance in front of his cranked out eyes. This is kind of stuff Internet memes are made of. If First Look had a marketing department that did more that create sell sheets for retailers, they probably could’ve built up a decent campaign to fit with a limited rollout. And while the film did receive mixed reviews at its festival appearances (our EIC didn’t particularly care for it), it does have its champions, including a rave from NY Times critic Manohla Dargis, who noted that audiences audibly gasped and laughed throughout, and called the film a ticket “straight to movie heaven.”
Unfortunately, this is the state of the cinematic climate. Directors of Herzog’s daring and caliber are going to struggle more than ever to get decent distribution. We just hope a better fate awaits his other film from this year, the David Lynch produced “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done” [ed. though that picture is even worse than ‘Lieutenant,’ so good luck there].