Category: Moonrise Kingdom

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Moonrise Kingdom and the Success of the Platform Release


The most frequent question that we’ve seen on tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook has been, “When is Moonrise Kingdom opening in my hometown?” If you yourself have asked this question, you are part of the success story of Moonrise‘s platform release strategy.

First, let’s turn to wikipedia for a definition of a platform release:

A platform release is a limited release strategy, whereby the film opens in only a few theaters, then gradually expands to more theaters as word of mouth spreads and the marketing campaign gains momentum. Depending on the film’s success, there is even the possibility to expand into a wide release. The advantage of this strategy is that marketing costs are conserved until a film’s performance has been established. This way, if a film turns out to be very popular or critically acclaimed, the distributor may opt to spend more money than originally planned and push for a wider release; if the movie flops, the distributor can withdraw from the campaign without having spent much money promoting and advertising the film.

As you may have heard, MR opened in only four theaters (two in New York and two in Los Angeles), but the film earned $167,250 per screen, which is highest per-theater box office average for a non-animated film of all time.

Join us after the jump for more thoughts regarding MR‘s success. Continue reading “Moonrise Kingdom and the Success of the Platform Release”

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Friday News Round-Up 6/8/12

  • (Above) Suzy’s earrings have never looked so good than in this artistic poster by Alex Quinn.
  • The Museum of the Moving Image has republished their five-part video series on the Substance of Style for Wes Anderson. The series is extremely detailed, well-researched, and absolutely engrossing. Absolutely recommended.
  • Roman Coppola talks with Interview Magazine regarding his experiences co-writing The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom. (Bonus trivia: In the interview, Roman uses the phrase “a memory of a fantasy,” which was coined by an interviewer during Cannes, which was referenced by Wes in his NPR interview.)
  • Watch the full 40 minute Moonrise Kingdom press conference from Cannes over here.
  • Short List has “alternative” designs for the Moonrise Kingdom poster, some of which we’ve featured here before, but it’s worth taking a look at the whole gallery. Certainly telling that the film inspired so many diverse images.
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Jason Schwartzman Interview from Cannes


We’re a little late to post this one, but don’t let its 6-day age turn you off. Jason Schwartzman, interviewed by Jada Yuan for New York Magazine, is at his best. He talks about his childhood experiences, working with Bill Murray, and his friendship with Wes:

So, when Wes calls, do you just drop everything you’re doing to be in his movies? Do you have a say in what you play?

First of all, let me say this: This is one of my best friends in the whole world and I am very, very lucky for that. There are very few people I could say that are my close people that I really, really care about. And I would say that there are an even smaller amount of them that I could say I actually work with, too. And it’s just very lucky. I met Wes on Rushmore. We made a movie together. We stayed in touch through the years. And then this weird thing happens to you personally and you talk about it and then you keep talking, and then all of a sudden it’s twelve years older and you’re like, “Wow, this is my best friend.”

Read the rest of the interview over at The Vulture.
(image via GQ)

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Friday News Round-Up 6/1/12

 

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Moonrise Kingdom Giveaway Winners!

Our giveaway has ended. A big thank you is due to all of those who entered! We had over 150 entries and our winners as determined by the random number generator are…

  • Sarah who said via our site, “Mr. Bishop in the foyer with an ax…”

    and…
  • Jake Wood who said via Facebook, “As much as I want to be *waves hands in front of face* different, I gotta go with Walt Bishop, because Bill Murray.”

Thanks again to all who entered!

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Wes Anderson’s Fresh Air Interview

Wes Anderson sat down with Terri Gross to discuss his inspiration of the movie, the casting process, visual design, and his own childhood.

The 38-minute interview is full of great details, like the revelation below:

ANDERSON: Well, I remember – you know, someone asked me in the past week, in Cannes – I don’t – I can’t even remember who it was that asked me this, a reporter. I wish I had noted him, because he asked me something that made me kind of realize what I had wanted to do. He asked if the movie was a memory of a fantasy.

And I thought – at first I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Then I realized that that is sort of exactly what the movie is. It’s – I remember the emotion of feeling like I was falling in love at that age, 12 years old, and how powerful it was and sudden, and kind of inexplicable. And yet in this – you know, I – nothing happened in my case.
[…]
GROSS: Who did you fall in love with?

ANDERSON: Well, I – I don’t – I don’t know if I want to even say the name, because it’s a, you know, a real person who very likely won’t be listening to this, but maybe would be. You know, a girl two rows over and three seats up who was in my class for years, and I never really had much of a conversation with her.

Listen to (or read the transcript of) the interview at NPR.

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Friday News Round-Up 5/25/12


It’s here, it’s finally here! It’s opening day! Buy your tickets early and often to support Wes and luxuriate in his newest cinematic masterpiece (and confidentially, as few of our editors have already seen the film, we can confirm it’s as wonderful as you had hoped.)

With that said, it’s time to get down to brass tacks, here’s your Friday Round-up:

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Peter Travers’ Rolling Stone review of Moonrise Kingdom

From Peter Travers’ 4.5/5-star review for Moonrise Kingdom:

In the immaculately designed, emotionally charged bubble filmmaker Wes Anderson builds around the 1965 New England summer, first love blooms. Sam (Jared Gilman) is an orphan at the mercy of foster parents and his Scout troop. Suzy (Kara Hayward) lives in a lighthouse with three younger brothers, two lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and an urge to bust free. Sam, she decides, is her man. No one understands their attraction. Hell, they’re both 12. He’s a string bean in thick glasses, and she’s cool enough to wear eyeliner. But Anderson, who wrote the resonant script with Roman Coppola, knows their secret hearts. So when the kids run away to an island they call Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson is right there with them. And thanks to this enchanted ride of a movie, so are we…

As the hurricane whips up a perhaps too busy climax, Anderson links the everyday and the extraordinary with virtuoso artistry. Shot with a poet’s eye by Robert Yeoman and lifted by an Alexandre Desplat score that samples Mozart, Hank Williams and Benjamin Britten, the hilarious and heartfelt Moonrise Kingdomis a consistent pleasure. By evoking the joys and terrors of childhood, it reminds us how to be alive.

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Moonrise Kingdom Release Day Giveaway

Enter our Moonrise Kingdom release day giveaway and win prizes courtesy of Focus Features! Limited engagement starts today, 25 May 2012. Nationwide release on 29 June.

Two (2) winners will receive:

  • T-Shirt
  • Patches (set of two)
  • Cooler
  • Canteen
  • Soundtrack

To enter: Comment on this post, retweet the link on Twitter, or reply to the story on our Facebook timeline. Be sure to  tell us who your favorite Moonrise Kingdom character is and why. Entries must be received by 11:59 PM ET on Monday, 28 May 2012. Two winners will be selected randomly from the entries.

Continue reading “Moonrise Kingdom Release Day Giveaway”

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How Wes Anderson Soundtracks His Films



If you’ve ever enjoyed Wes Anderson’s keen sense of pairing just the right song with justthe right scene, you have Randall Poster to thank. NPR has a wonderful interview with Poster that focuses on his work with Wes. Poster has worked on all of Wes’s films post-Bottle Rocket, after meeting through a mutual friend.

While walking around a farmer’s market, Anderson told Poster about a piece of music that he wanted to use for Bottle Rocket but couldn’t because of a rights issue.

“I was so smitten with the film that I basically promised to get any piece of music that he ever wanted to use in a movie,” Poster says. “And that kicked us off.”

Randall Poster’s interview with NPR is a real gem and offers a very different perspective of working on an Anderson film. To learn even more about Poster’s work, a 2007 interview with the Guardian has some great blurbs about working on WA films and others.


Image of Poster on the set of The Darjeeling Limited from moviefone.