“Spinal Tap 2” is dead.
A perfectly good comedy, with a big IP following and lots of goodwill, is mostly out of theaters after one week.
Rob Reiner’s mockumentary sequel, with Paul McCartney and Elton John, fizzled like bad fire work never got the chance to take off.
Blame Bleecker Street Films, which put no money into marketing and just dumped it into release with no intention of back it up.
The movie had a budget of around $25 million.
An insider tells me: “Sadly, they all ran the algorithms (it’s that game today) and all the major players thought it too much of a risk to distribute it, so [the producers went with the best offer, which didn’t include much marketing $$$. Everyone loves the movie and hope it will find an audience in the streaming world.”
“Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues” is now playing in some theaters, but cut down to one or two showings a day, mostly in the morning when no one will see it.
This is despite an effort on Reiner’s part to get some attention on Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon with very amusing segments.
And some of the marketing, which was scarce, was confusing: I saw a few stories go out that seemed like they were about the fictional members of the group instead of the actors. It was way, way too meta to even understand.
Also, clever as it is, why is the poster sending up Crosby, Stills & Nash — something very old that no young person would get. Better an album from the 90s live Nirvana’s “In Utero” or “Nevermind”?
But where was the CBS Sunday Morning piece? Ad spots on classic rock radio? On Sirius? Also I’m told that music magazines like Rolling Stone also had a very tough time dealing with Bleecker Street. You do also wonder why the producers themselves didn’t pop for a 50,000 publicist.
Alas, it’s over. We will have to Smell the Glove on home video whenever a deal is worked out.
BTW The trailer had under8 800,000 views on YouTube
