Sarah Palin's 'The Undefeated' Headed for VOD, Pay-Per-View, and DVD in Bid for Wider Audience
The controversial documentary has grossed only $101,000 in two weekends of limited release.
While The Undefeated, Stephen K. Bannon’s controversial pro-Sarah Palin documentary, hasn’t attracted many moviegoers to its limited theatrical engagements over the past two weekends, it will be offered on VOD and pay-per-view beginning Sept. 1 in a bid to reach a wider audience.
A DVD of the film, with an initial shipping of 225,000 units, will follow on Oct. 4.
ARC Entertainment announced Sunday that the doc would become available to 75 million homes via VOD and pay-per-view access through national and regional cable and satellite operators such as DirectTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable in September.
When the DVD rolls out a month later to traditional and online retailers, Wal-Mart will offer an exclusive “Special Edition” DVD, which will have additional content sold only at Wal-Mart stores.
The distributor said the VOD and DVD rollouts “will be backed by a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to heighten awareness in all markets to the film’s availability.”
While ARC said it would continue to play the film in theaters throughout August and September “as demand across the country remains high,” that wasn’t evident in this weekend’s box office numbers…
Trevor Drinkwater, CEO of ARC Entertainment, said: “Since the film opened in select markets across the country on July 15, we have been inundated with requests from people wanting the film to be made available in their market. After methodically analyzing the most effective ways to bring this galvanizing film to the widest audience as soon as possible we have determined that continued limited theatrical distribution, video-on-demand, pay-per-view and DVD sales will be the best modalities by which to deliver this film as widely as possible. We have created partnerships with national cable, satellite and mass retailers to achieve our distribution goals.”
Cassi Creek:
The numbers for the first week of this dog and pony show indicate that there was little interest among moviegoers in seeing it. The nearly instantaneous decision to release it to VOD, PPV, and DVD (at Wal-Mart) indicate to me that there will be no lines to purchase tickets to see the movie.
I don’t know anyone nor am I even slightly acquainted with anyone who intends to see the movie. I suppose there will be impulse purchases by Wal-Mart shoppers. I can’t think of any new or additional material that would raise enough interest on my part to cause me to buy it at Wal-Mart.
I suppose that there may be some people who will buy a DVD or stream/download the two hour commercial to avoid being seen entering a theater where it is playing; or to avoid being observed placing it in their cart or on the check-out conveyer belt at Wal-Mart. Personally, if I were to stream a movie or buy a movie on DVD, it would be something that I actually might find enjoyable, not a two-hour long distortion of reality that lacks the benefit of being openly fictitious, and therefore amusing and/or entertaining in some fashion.
I notice that one of the articles linked above suggests the DVD run will be used as a bonus gift for subscribing to one of the many right wing talk programs. That’s possible But I also suspect that, since this is largely a compilation of extracts and guided interviews designed to produce political and social infatuation with Palin, any pool of new subscribers will already have sent in their $99.99 plus shipping and handling to Sarahpac in order to own one, or both, of Palin’s attempts at forming at least one grammatically correct and structurally complete sentence using the English language to communicate an idea. So expect the DVD’s to eventually become like Prodigy and AOL internet CD’s sent out wholesale to “occupant.”
The film maker/distributor expends lots of words explaining why no one showed up ( not even in Orange County CA) and how expanding the number of screens will magically, we assume, fill the theaters with rabid Palin fans, eager to listen to re-written history while shelling out $10.00-$30.00/person for admission and munchies. Well, “munchies” might just explain why anyone would pay to see this. Stoned people will watch all manner of info-mercial if they are supplied with sufficient food.
You’ve also got to be rather messed up to offer a standing ovation at a movie theater with no members of the cast present. Even in Iowa, I’ve never been that bored.
The link above leading to the movie review is worth following. The review is honestly brief and brutally truthful. Somewhere in America, “The Undefeated” is playing to empty theaters. Also in America, an Oscar Acceptance speech is being ghost-written. It will only be used on an also-ghost-written Facebook page.
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