Escape from Tomorrow

[BB]

SPOILERS

I enjoyed -- loved, even -- everything up to the Intermission. After that, felt things were hit and miss. I assume most of the stuff they shot elsewhere was shot after the location stuff at the parks and it was mostly these sequences that didn't work for me (though by no means all of them; the pool scene is great for example). Seems like they had gotten a sense of what shape the film was taking and either a) decided to go all in on the esoteric/bizarre stuff regardless of how well it fit, or b) couldn't get the vibes right in a controlled environment after so long in the wilderness. Still, ambitious and impressive. A good follow through on a great idea.

Also, extra-textually, I'm coming away with a memorable theater experience. Only about twenty people in attendance. With the exception of one awful couple (grumbling and loudly sighing, cell phones out), everybody's into it and willing to go wherever it takes us. Even after the Intermission, as things start to get REALLY weird, everybody's still on board, laughing, giving it the benefit of the doubt, trusting it will pull off whatever it's trying to pull off... Then -- BAM! -- the diarrhea. It was like a door opened on a midflight plane. All of us on the same wavelength. Not "what the fuck?" -- just "oh." Eighteen hearts dropping.

I looked at my girlfriend on my right. Then to my left at the stranger on the other end of the row. At this exact moment, he's turning to look at me. We look at each other for a while. Then return to the film. Two rows ahead of me, I see another two strangers, many seats apart, do the exact same thing.

[Ravi]

http://www.deadline.com/2013/10/john-sloss-posts-escape-from-tomorrow-vod-revenues-dares-rivals-to-do-same/

John Sloss Posts 'Escape From Tomorrow' VOD Revenues; Dares Rivals To Do Same
By BRIAN BROOKS | Monday October 28, 2013 @ 9:15am PDT

EXCLUSIVE: John Sloss, whose Producers Distribution Agency is releasing the provocative unauthorized Disney World-shot Escape From Tomorrow, reports that in its first two weeks, the film grossed $139,334 in theatrical revenues — and $120,560 in VOD/digital grosses — for a total take of $259,894. VOD, he said, was $55,000 and broadband revenue was $65,000. Now, that's chump change for a studio release, but groundbreaking in that Sloss even volunteered it. Unless it's after the fact on a triumph like Margin Call or Arbitrage, it feels like most multi-platform distributors would sooner give out the numbers to their personal bank accounts than timely VOD grosses. It makes my job reporting specialty box office an incomplete exercise, because VOD/digital revenues play a bigger role on the specialty film release circuit every year. Distributors say their films clean up on cable and broadband, but there is no reliable mechanism for timely tally on VOD revenues the way there is on theatricals.

Sloss, who is on both sides of the coin in that his Cinetic Media brokers film distribution deals and PDA does multi-platform releasing on films like the Banksy documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop, has issued a challenge to his rivals: cough up the numbers as they get from cable companies, iTunes and other revenue providers, and create a level of transparency that shows what VOD really means to the bottom lines of prestige films.

[ono]

This is on Netflix now.