THE BROTHERS BLOOM dumped by the Weinsteins

This week we are expecting to have some exclusive interviews and content for The Brothers Bloom, the follow-up from director Rian Johnson's exciting debut film Brick which stars Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody as two con men brothers who meet their match in the glamorous and eccentric Rachel Weisz. Even though I let my feelings well known that the trailer completely lowered my expectations for the film, I still wanted to see it. These are fine actors, who very rarely put in a bad performance and the plot had so much potential and Johnson is a director I have been tracking for a while. The news today though further puts doubts into the quality of the $20 million film which we are seeing at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend. The Weinsteins have pulled the movie from it's October 24th wide release and turned it into a December 19th limited release, they are clearly worried about it's commercial viability.

Depending on how the limited release goes, a wider one is penciled in for mid-January. This comes from the director's own message board...

There were a few reasons for the move: October and November are crowded as hell, it€™s a tough tough market, especially for a smart unique film like ours, and we€™d have a week or two at the most to sink or swim. Whereas concentrating on a couple markets for awards consideration in December, then pushing the wide in the more open January slot just seemed like a better use of resources. Mostly though, what convinced me it was a good idea was that it gives us more time to get more awareness of the movie out there.

Well that theory certainly worked for No Country For Old Men which had a similar problem of "just how do we market this?" last year and it most certainly benefited from a slow burning release with an eventual $74 million domestic taking. Same goes for that magician thriller The Illusionist the year before which seemed to be making money for weeks, when there's no doubt a big marketed opening might have seen it crash and burn. Look out for more coverage on The Brothers Bloom later in the week. via - /film

This article is sponsored by The Movie Forum