This is interesting: a Defamer tipster points out out a tiny ad in what looks like the print edition of the Village Voice, listing screenings beginning today in way, WAY uptown Manhattan of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. The much-discussed Sundance doc was picked up at that festival, as we noted on our deal chart, for domestic release and Oscar qualifying by HBO. Other than this little ad, there’s been no publicity and no reviews of the film in advance of this New York release; I consulted Moviefone’s AIM movie listings bot, and was told that “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired has not opened yet. It will open on 12-31-10.”
Defamer’s Stu VanAirsdale posits that this secret release is happening as a way of meeting Oscar nomination qualifications––and he’s probably right––but even token qualifying releases are usually given *some* kind of publicity budget. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised: Anne Thompson essentially predicted an in-name-only theatrical release for Wanted when the HBO deal was made at Sundance. As she put it on her blog,
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SpoutBlog » karina