Not living in New York, L.A., or one of the other nine major cities that are currently screening Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” in its full roadshow version? Well, starting Friday January 23, you can do the roadshow experience in your home if you like as both films will be available on IFC Video On Demand (if you have something above basic cable this should be available to you).
So yeah, conceivably, if you have the stamina, you two can see the whole ambitious enterprise in one sitting only with convenient pause bathroom breaks, a plethora of snacks and in your underwear if you so choose.
IFC head Jonathan Sehring says the 250,000 viewers he hopes will buy “Che” after it becomes available on the company’s on-demand service this Friday “would roughly equate to a box-office haul of $1.8 million,” writes the New York Times (who corrected their figure from a previous post – all bloggers make mistakes when you work that fast and late).
IFC is planning another on-demand experiment with mumblecore director Joe Swanberg’s “Alexander The Last,” which itself is not disimilar to the on-demand release of Soderbergh’s “Bubble” from 2005. The film will premiere at the SXSW film festival, and on-demand simultaneously. Four other IFC films will be available as well including “Medicine For Melancholy.”
IFC should be applauded for taking on “Che” when everyone else was basically too afraid. The gamble seems to have really paid off. Soderbergh talked about the initial distribution problems to BlackBook recently. “I was stunned by [how difficult it was to sell the film], What we ended up learning was: all the people who might have been interested said, “Look, our pay-TV deals are what enable us to cover a lot of our print and advertising, or keep us from getting killed.” All of our pay-TV deals exclude foreign-language films, so half those deals where our ass is hanging out. We never anticipated someone who was going to blow $10 or $15 million putting this thing out. We weren’t asking for an advance … we were just looking for a deal. Nobody wanted to take a chance other than IFC, and Magnolia, for a while. That was annoying.”
Asked whether his four plus-hour Che Guevara saga was worth all the time and effort, Soderbergh quipped, “I’m not sure that it was.” We must respectfully disagree. Do yourself a favor and order it ondemand this weekend. If you hate it, send us the bill, but we assume anyone with half a brain will at least be engaged for part one. Benicio del Toro will be robbed of an Oscar nomination on Thursday and it’ll be a crying shame.
BTW: You can hear Soderbergh talking about the IFC VOD release of “Che” at the Sundance press conference that Hollywood Elswhere made an MP3 of. Soderbergh makes a great argument for the VOD experience. “People have heard about the film, they’ve seem the press on it and [some might not] live in a town that perhaps that has an arthouse theater. Because of working this way it’s very difficult for us to get into chain cinemas, we’re sort of blocked from that opportunity. So, It’s great for somebody who doesn’t live in a metropolitan area whose been reading about the film and wants to see it. Now they [can]. For me, it’s a great situation.”