Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Fox Ships Hide and Seek Without Final Reel

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Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 01-25-2005, 06:53 PM:

Source: ComingSoon.net
Dateline: January 25, 2005

For the first time in its illustrious 70-year history, 20th Century Fox will be shipping prints of a motion picture to theaters across the nation without the picture's final reel. The unprecedented move is part of a major effort to protect the pay-off of the studio's terrifying suspense-thriller Hide and Seek, starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning.

Fox has taken extraordinary measures to safeguard the critical final reel, which is shipping separately. In addition to shipping the reel separately, security guards will hand-deliver the reel to all playdate theaters across the U.S. As a final security measure, Fox has numbered all final reels.

Hide and Seek opens nationwide this Friday, January 28.

Commented Fox executive VP and general sales manager Richard Myerson: "'Hide and Seek' is a terrific picture with an ending that everyone will be talking about. To ensure everyone's enjoyment of the film and to prevent 'spoilers', we've instituted extraordinary measures. We think it's worth the effort."

Hide and Seek, rated "R" for frightening sequences and violence, is about a widowed father who desperately tries to break through to his nine year old daughter when she creates a creepy, maniacal "imaginary" friend with a terrifying vendetta. The film also stars Famke Janssen, Elisabeth Shue, Amy Irving and Dylan Baker. It is directed by John Polson, produced by Barry Josephson, and written by Ari Schlossberg.

Now is it just me or is this just moronic...What the hell have the film companys learned in the past month with all the late arival prints. Now we have to wait till Friday morning to get the last real to the Big Feature of the weekend. What happens when it dosn't arrive cause of a snow storm. What are we supposed to tell the customers...sorry sir you can watch the first 5 reels but your not going to find out the "GREAT" ending...you'll have to pay your $7.50 and come back next Monday Cause they don't ship over the weekend.

In closing this has got to be one of the dumbest things possible...From me to Fox executive VP and general sales manager Richard Myerson a Big [fu]

I forgot...FUCKING SECURITY GUARDS ARE TO DELIVER THE FINAL REEL!!!! How many people want to bet that its handed to you just like a replacement real would be...no one special just the delivery guy....WHAT A FUCKING JOKE!
Now that my rants over whats everyone else's opinons on this?

[ 01-25-2005, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Kurt Zupin ]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-25-2005, 07:01 PM:

This story sounds kind of like a round a bout way to build hype for a movie. The tactic makes me even more suspicious the show will stink.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-25-2005, 07:01 PM:

Publicity stunt.

They should have opened the movie on Wednesday, that way if there were any problems, a theatre might only lose one day vs. a whole weekend.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-25-2005, 07:05 PM:

This is just ridiculous. God forbid this doesn't have any issues with the late delivery of the last reel, then fucking EVERY movie will start shipping like this for "security reasons".

Posted by Chris Brown (Member # 2800) on 01-25-2005, 09:01 PM:

Totally ridiculous...as Mike said, sounds like a stupid publicity stunt to me!

Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 01-25-2005, 10:26 PM:

What happens to the theatres that do not open until late in the afternoon? Who's going to accept deliver for that final reel????

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 01-25-2005, 11:04 PM:

I would simply call the distributor and tell them, "We've changed our minds and found a better picture from a different distributor. We're canceling our booking".

This movie must be a real pile of shit---maybe they should leave out all the reels!

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 01-25-2005, 11:10 PM:

Sounds like some bonehead from my company made this decision...

"Let's make the situation worse by compounding the completixity of day to day operations. Fuck the managers-- they'll get over it.. or we'll replace them..."

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 01-25-2005, 11:48 PM:

Funny ... they didn't leave the last reel out from the trade screening ... I could spoil it for Fox here in this forum ....

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 01-26-2005, 02:31 AM:

How are we supposed to video tape the whole movie now since it is not arriving complete. My masses of video pirates are going to be angry at me. What am "I" going to do about this? [evil]

AJG

Posted by Chase Hanson (Member # 2779) on 01-26-2005, 03:17 AM:

Hey thats great!!

And in 3 weeks after this movie bombs horribly, ill return the print, with the last reel missing...ya know for "security" reasons.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 01-26-2005, 03:58 AM:

I wont even get the print untill 2Am. Will the hand delivered final reel wind up showing up at 4?

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 01-26-2005, 06:20 AM:

quote: Don Anderson
What happens to the theatres that do not open until late in the afternoon? Who's going to accept deliver for that final reel????

We open late afternoon on Friday's...I build all movies on Thursday nights and will be out of town Friday. My manager's gonna be pissed.

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 01-26-2005, 10:25 AM:

This also reminds me of the time we played Wild Wild West at the Skyline drivein. We ran double features and we were opening Wild Wild West first run. Normally our films show up an hour before showtime! Well I dragged the film cans upstairs and started sorting thru which was going onscreen first. Put the two cans of the second feature in the corner since I had to build the WWW first. Looked at the label on the cans it said "3 can shipment". Oh shit! There's only two cans here! Needless to say we ran only one movie that Friday night and the owner made several frantic calls to find the other can. Pony Express (our film delivery company at the time) had completely lost one entire can and could not account for it. The studio shipped us the replacement reels the next day and we were back to running two features again that Saturday night.

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 01-26-2005, 02:26 PM:

I questing the authenticity of this story.. My print of Hide and Seek showed up yesterday with all reels included.

I though the movie was decent, the ending was pretty good though.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-26-2005, 03:28 PM:

Word from a Fox rep says that the prints have already been shipped with all reels included. They are doing this last reel seperate thing in LA only, so I guess all of the pirates are in LA! [Razz]

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 01-26-2005, 03:32 PM:

wouldn't shipping the last reel alone almost double the distribution shipping costs? I can't imagine they pay on a per-pound basis, so it's probably per-delivery... Anyway, I'm glad to hear that it really isn't playing out like the article suggested.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-26-2005, 03:52 PM:

I wonder if the theatres in LA are having to pay for the extra delivery.

(BTW shouldn't this be in FHF?) WAKE UP PHIL!

[ 01-26-2005, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: Mike Blakesley ]

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 01-26-2005, 05:26 PM:

Thats a good thing, just checked our copy of Hide and Seek, came in this morning...all reels acounted for...For a minute I thought I was gonna have to off some one.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 01-26-2005, 11:47 PM:

So, the title of the movie is "Hide & Seek" and that's precicely what they make (some of) us do with the prints?! [Confused]

Sounds like Publicity Stunt City to me!

Now if they REALLY wanted to cause a stir, they should have broken in to the theaters under cover of darkness and hidden the reel(s) somewhere inside the theater. THEN they should have written the location of the reels on the walls in blood red invisible ink that only appears a few hours before the movie is supposed to open!

THAT would be a stunt!! [Cool]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-27-2005, 07:33 AM:

When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought it was referring to another film called "Hide and Seek," which is a semi-obscure documentary made in the mid-1990s about lesbians growing up in the 1960s. Or something like that. And it's only one reel and 16mm only. I couldn't imagine that this would have gotten any sort of wide release. (The distributor is some outfit called "Women Make Movies.") Apparently, it didn't.... [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Cory Isemann (Member # 2517) on 01-27-2005, 07:39 AM:

Ours came in yesterday afternoon, a complete print. We have a sneak of it tonight I believe.

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 01-29-2005, 07:48 PM:

*SPOILER ALERT(?)* The "critical" final reel? I'm pretty sure that the critical plot point(s) were presented before the last reel, right? I mean, except for that last little tease in the final shot (which is hardly plot-critical), was there ANYTHING really noteworthy after that last changeover?

My guess was that, yes, it was pure publicity stunt.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 01-31-2005, 03:28 PM:

The film was complete when it arrived at out place on Thursday.

Posted by Bill Carter (Member # 156) on 01-31-2005, 08:41 PM:

This was nothing but a publicity stunt. Nobody in any print handling/routing capacity at Fox, or ETS had heard a thing about this. Folks at my local ETS depot laughed out loud at the press release.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 02-10-2005, 03:05 AM:

Yeah...Because the movie pirates work at the theaters.
Hardly anyone at my theater even shows up for screenings on tuesdays or thursdays, let alone cam the whole thing.

Our print was in tact, though big shocker, we're not from LA.

And here's a good question...Why did one of my prints of Hitch show up under a code name yet the other didn't? What kind of crap is that?

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-10-2005, 09:13 AM:

One new idea that Columbia/Sony just started is giving different code names to each can of a feature.
So each can has a different title listed.

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 02-10-2005, 03:01 PM:

My print of Hitch came in as "wishes"... I was quite surprised by the 11 trailers in the can (plus one attached)...

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 02-11-2005, 12:30 PM:

Hide and Seeking publicity

quote:
Hide and Seeking publicity
Three days before the new thriller Hide and Seek opened last week, Twentieth Century Fox revealed that each print of the film would be delivered to theaters without its final reel, which would later be hand-delivered by armed security guards. The stunt was intended to hype the alleged shocker at the movie's end.

"I love the idea of weapons at our screenings," says a rep at Allied Advertising, which promoted the movie in Cleveland.

Of course, it's occasionally more fruitful to stage publicity stunts so that the public is actually aware of them. Since moviegoers tend not to swarm the parking lot to see what the FedEx guy is delivering, the armed guards elicited slightly less than a shrug from local audiences.

But the Loews theater at Richmond Town Square did Fox one better: Two minutes into last week's sneak-preview, the theater lost all power, leaving the packed house in darkness. Everyone was sent home, and thus the film's climactic finish -- as well as the 100 or so minutes leading up to it -- remained a secret.

"Now my curiosity's killing me, I have to be honest about that," says Debbie Frinizia of Chesterland, who attended the near-screening.

Mission accomplished, Fox.

Posted by Alexander Smith (Member # 1769) on 02-25-2005, 03:34 PM:

Here in the UK, our print of Hide And Seek arrived
complete, withOUT silly pseudonymns e.t.c.

[Edit 'cos it's late and I'm tired! ;-) ]

Posted by Matthew Nock (Member # 1575) on 02-25-2005, 09:23 PM:

I kept forgetting to post this...

but here in Aus, the release of Hide and Seek shipped to cinemas as normal...

Well, almost.
you see, 50% of cinemas received one ending... the other 50% received the other ending!

Was it advertised to the gen. public? NO!

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 02-25-2005, 11:30 PM:

Multiple endings? What????

Posted by Matthew Nock (Member # 1575) on 02-25-2005, 11:51 PM:

Yep, I kid you not!

ending 1:

After the father gets shot in the cave, it fades to black.
Then when the scene returns, we see the young girl, lying in a bed. The female from New York is there. She gets up to leave, turns the light off (I think) then goes to close the door. The young girl asks "Can you leave the door open?" to which the woman replies "you know I cant do that" and with that she closes the door, and the camera pans to show a window in the door with wire in it, and then pans to show a hospital corridor. fade to black, credits roll.

Ending 2: (My preferred ending - but has sequel written on it).
From the fade to black in the cave after the father is shot....

We see a nice sunny apartment in downtown New York. The girl is there, drawing a picture at the table. The Woman is wandering round, she says "Come on, or you will be late for school", to which the girl replies "I am almost done". She then madly finishes he drawing, she gets up, and the camera watches them walk toward the door. we follow, but as we pass the table, the camera pans down to look at the picture.

The picture is of the woman, outside in the sun, holding the girls hand... the girl has not one, but two heads.

Fade to black - credits roll.

!!!!! beat that! [Smile]

[ 02-26-2005, 04:47 AM: Message edited by: Matthew Nock ]

Posted by Andrew Shingleton (Member # 2257) on 02-26-2005, 09:17 AM:

From what I've managed to gather, the two head ending is the original version, and the hospital/institution ending is the alternate one. We ended up with the alternate ending.

Posted by Matthew Nock (Member # 1575) on 02-26-2005, 06:47 PM:

Andrew, you are indeed correct. I found an email that Michael Madigan from Fox had sent... and the alternate ending is in the hospital.