Distributor & Box Office

Distributor


For a film to be seen, it has to be distributed.
This selling of the production can be done through Cinema, Television and DVD. However its not just the showing of the film that is done through distribution, but also marketing.
A huge impact on British Cinema is Hollywood, and making a production appeal to the American audience, which is also important within distribution. If a film is produced for the american audience, but the distribution within America fails, then its success will also fail.

Marketing includes promotional posters, dvd sleeves, interactive marketing, interviews and reviews.
Often with posters and dvd covers, there will be different versions for America and UK. This is due to wanting to appeal to the American audience, which in some cases is very different in the way it appeals to the UK audience. An example of this is Bridget Jones Diary, a British film, which was made for the american audience.

On the UK DVD cover there is just the central protagonist,  Renee Zellweger, and the names of the other actors, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant rather than the images, as the UK audience would recognise the names and not necessarily need the images of the actors to be attracted to the film. On the other hand, the American DVD cover features all 3 main characters and the names to signify who is who. This suggests that the cast is less well known in America, even though Renee is an A list American actress, it is not enough to pull in a huge crowd.


Box Office


So in distribution it is important to attract the right audience, which in psychological thriller is quite undefined, as the box office figures have little that comes from a psychological thriller.
The latest psychological thriller that has been released was Shutter Island, which directed by Martin Scorsese and staring Leonardo DiCaprio advertised itself with those two people enough to make it more popular than other psychological thrillers. In its opening weekend in the UK Shutter Islands box office figure was £2,250,178, and $41,062,440 in the USA. In contrast to other opening weekend figures on the previous weekend, the rom-com Valentine's Day got $56,260,707. This suggests that the genre is not as popular, and does not have such a wide audience, even if it is directed by a famous director and stars A-list actors.

With a genre such as psychological thriller, a successful film might not get high figures in its opening weekend box office, however over a period of time of being shown in cinemas, and through word of mouth, a film has the ability to generate high box office figures, regardless of how successful the opening weekend was. An example of this is Silence of the Lambs, with in its opening weekend in February it got $13,766,814, yet by October 1991 it had earned $130,742,922