Sony Pictures Classics To Buy Bury The Wackness

Sony Pictures Classics To Buy/Bury The Wackness?!

By Peter Sciretta/Jan. 26, 2008 7:28 pm EST

Let’s take a look at some of the recent Sony Pictures Classics releases, and how well they faired at the box office:

Youth Without Youth – $196,000: I don’t care how experimental or how badly reviewed this film was, Sony could have slapped ads up touting “Francis Ford Coppola’s First Film in Ten Years” or “From the Director of The Godfather”.Persepolis – $913,000: Nominated for an academy award, but dumped in to art houses with little to no press and advertising.My Kid Could Paint That – $229,000: One of the best documentaries of 2007 with huge free marketing appeal (in news shows, newspapers…etc)Junebug – $2,680,000: Amy Adam’s oscar nominated break-out performance dumped.Layer Cake – $2,340,000: A lighting quick gangster film with major cult appeal starring announced Bond replacement Daniel Craig.

I hope that Sony pictures Classics proves me wrong. I hope they market the hell out of this film. The Wackness has huge generational cult classic potential on the level of Zack Braff’s Garden State, which took in $26.8 million in the U.S. One thing is for sure, as much as I dislike Sony Pictures Classics, I will be giving this film an abundance of free marketing.

More from our Friends:

Neil at FSR: “This is probably one of the worst things that could have happened for the film.” “They are a studio that wouldn’t know what to do with a great film even if it came with a set of instructions.”

Josh Tyler from CinemaBlend: “With the right marketing campaign and the right people promoting it, The Wackness could have easily opened in 1000 theaters and made millions. With Sony Pictures Classics behind it, we’ll be lucky if it ever plays anywhere outside of New York or LA, and forget about Oscar consideration.”

Anne Thompson of Variety: “Some folks seem to have an issue with SPC distributing Wackness.”