15/09/2006

After Ken Loach’s media frenzy in the UK for the release of The Wind That Shakes the Barley [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ken Loach
interview: Rebecca O’Brien
film profile] (see focus) and the film’s fantastic box office success (£3,7m and still rising), Pathé UK is today releasing The Queen, another potential UK hit carried by a similar “media tsunami” and level of awareness.

Out on 327 screens, Stephen Frears’ The Queen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andy Harries
interview: Stephen Frears
film profile] is ready to conquer UK audiences after having won the hearts of international film critics and festival audiences in Venice.

“The film’s promotion really centres on the press’ fabulous reaction and the double awards in Venice [Best Script for Peter Morgan and Best Actress for Helen Mirren]”, said Alasdair Nicolson of Pathé’s marketing department, who confesses, “we did rush the film into the UK release to build on the platform in Venice, and most prints didn’t arrive before last Sunday. So in terms of preview screenings, all we did was a big talker preview screening with The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday night, just before the film’s UK Premiere on Wednesday, attended by Helen Mirren and Stephen Frears, among others”.

The marketing campaign also included heavy trailering the previous month, a huge radio promotion on Classic FM (the biggest commercial radio in the UK), and a TV and press campaign several weeks before “D-Day”. Outdoor advertisement was concentrated on the UK capital.

With The Queen’s overwhelming press coverage and crowded opening week (of a total 11 new films on UK screens), it will be hard for other new European films to have a voice.

Soda Pictures is releasing Christoffer Boe’s Danish film Allegro [+see also:
trailer
film profile] at the ICA Cinema in London; Maiden Voyage Pictures the Spanish costume comedy Unconscious [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Joaquín Oristrell on two London screens and in one cinema in Edinburgh; Revolver Film Distribution is starting on 2 prints for the portmanteau UK/US film Destricted, following up on several previews and panel discussions about sex and art at London’s Tate Modern. Lastly, Peccadillo Pictures is releasing Sege Frydman’s French drama My Angel on one screen at the French Institute’s Lumiere Cinema.