The Wrestler
Jan/090
Let’s be serious for a minute here. Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Magazine and every major entertainment and sports magazine has written about The Wrestler. Everyone loves it. The commercials on TV make it look like the best movie of the year. If you wanted to see this movie today you have to live in one of these cities:
Boston Chicago Los Angeles New York San Francisco Washington, D.C.
If you want to see this movie on Friday night, you have to live in one of those cities or:
Austin Dallas/Ft. Worth Denver Detroit Hartford/New Haven Minneapolis Philadelphia Phoenix San Diego Seattle
AND if you live in one of these cities you can see it NEXT Friday:
Albany Albuquerque Ann Arbor Atlanta Baltimore Boca Raton/West Palm Beach Cincinnati Columbus Honolulu Houston Indianapolis Kansas City Las Vegas Madison Miami/Ft. Lauderdale Milwaukee Northampton/Springfield Orlando Portland Rochester Sacramento Salt Lake City/Boise St. Louis
And so on. My question is when can I see this movie without driving to Chicago or Milwaukee? When can I go to a town like New Berlin, WI that has like maybe 30-40,000 in the city with another 50-60k that can drive to it. When can I see this movie without going to the little art house theater in downtown Milwaukee?
I mean, you’re going to tell me that a movie about a pro wrestler and his stripper girlfriend is not going to appeal to middle America? Really? Let’s say I didn’t like art house movies. Let’s say I just liked movies where shit blows up and everything else. If that were true of me, I would STILL desperately want to see this movie. Why? Because Mickey Rourke puts someone through a fucking table in the trailer! This is basically a movie about a broke, less crazy Randy Savage. If this movie was a Randy Savage biopic with Mickey Rourke and 5 star reviews all over the place, people would go see it. The Kane movie made $18m at the box office then almost doubled that on DVD. And that movie was fucking terrible. I’m no box office expert or anything, but if this movie got a wide release without adding anything to it’s current marketing (re: awards baiting) budget this movie could make at least $30m. At least. Considering it was made for $6m, I think that would be a pretty big success. Instead the movie is stuck with this crappy awards baiting release schedule and it will make a smaller profit with DVD sales/rentals barring an Oscar win. Sad, really.
