From Justin to Kelly - Inside Information

You may know me mostly from my series of "American (Idol) Revolution" columns. However, (for those who haven't read my mini bio at the bottom of my articles) my regular job involves my having a bit more knowledge about the movie industry than the average person. I also have some contacts inside the studios and frequently get information not generally available to the public. Sometimes this info turns out to be dead-on accurate, and sometimes it just ends up being a random rumor. I can't promise you that what I'm about to tell you is completely true, nor can I reveal my sources. In other words, take some of this with a grain of salt. That said, according to my sources…

The release date of From Justin to Kelly was changed to June 13, 2003, because of post-production problems. Once any movie is filmed and put together it is put through a "bleaching" process. What this does is sharpen some colors and fade others to give the film a more uniform appearance. This used to be a rather tedious and manual process, but in recent years it's become much simpler through the use of digital technology. Apparently, Kelly's skin didn't handle the constant sunshine of the outdoor locations very well and she dealt with sunburn, peeling skin, blotchy and dry patches on her face, and all the other problems that come up when regular people get too much sun too quickly. In the first test runs of the completed film this became obvious and some doctoring needed to be done to the master prints in order to even out Kelly's skin tones. In addition, the background music - not the soundtrack itself - needed to be re-recorded. This is the incidental music that plays throughout almost all movies to set mood, tone, tension, etc., and it was deemed unsuitable for the movie itself. The actual soundtrack that everyone would be interested in owning - the songs sung by the two stars themselves - is nowhere near being ready for commercial release because, just like with movie releases, timing is everything. Music buyers have limited budgets. Fox doesn't want to hurt sales of either Kelly's or Justin's debut albums by flooding the market with more than fans can afford to purchase.

The budget for the film is roughly 15 million dollars, which is pocket change for a major film production. Fox is uncertain now as to what to do with the movie. They can't release a summer beach flick in the middle of fall or winter, so they have to place it into the summer rotation. The release date they have chosen for it at present is very tentative - so tentative in fact that the movie still hasn't appeared on many of the booking lists that theater owners rely on. There is no official website for the movie beyond a "coming soon" page, and there is no trailer or preview available. While Fox doesn't have a very heavy release schedule for June/July (Wrong Turn and 28 Days Later) the other studios have already planned a number of expected blockbusters to land during that timeframe. If FJTK is released as planned it will be competing with the next Charlie's Angels movie, The Hulk, the prequel to Dumb and Dumber, the sequel to The Fast and the Furious, and a new Rugrats movie, all of which will pull attention away from the small budget beach movie. Fox will not want to spend millions of dollars to promote FJTK out of fear of losing money. With the release date coming up fast, all of these factors are a very bad sign. There are a limited number of movie screens in North America and the blockbusters are going to snap up the largest percentage of them. This leaves Fox with several choices:

1. Release the film as planned and hope for the best. The amount of publicity the movie has gotten during episodes of American Idol this season guarantees that roughly 20 million people will know the title of the film if they hear it or see that it's playing in the local theater. On the other hand, Fox insiders have little knowledge as to whether or not people will still be interested. Even people who write about American Idol have expressed doubts about the idea of this movie and Kelly's debut album has already started to slip on the record charts. With all those other movies screaming for attention, Fox views this as a risky proposition.
2. Release the film when the schedule looks a little friendlier. This presents an entire new set of problems. FJTK is most definitely a summer movie. That means if they don't get it out while the kids are out of school it will have a hard time finding an audience. Also, fans are known to be fickle and if Fox waits until next spring or summer to release the movie they have no way of knowing if Kelly will still be as hot as a volcano or as cold as Vanilla Ice. Popstar images change as quickly as the weather and both Kelly and Justin may look and sound radically different a year from now.
3. Don't release the movie at all. Each studio in Hollywood has numerous completed movies "in the can" and waiting on a shelf somewhere. Some will eventually crawl out into theaters but the majority will be forgotten or wind up as…
4. Released direct to video instead of into theaters. This would almost guarantee everyone involved would make a huge profit. The low cost of the film production means that it will come close to breaking even with just sales to video rental stores, let alone "for sale" outlets like WalMart and Best Buy. Then there's the cable television profits, Fox television would raise ad revenue by showing it on broadcast TV, etc.

The entertainment industry makes its choices based on dollar values. If Fox decides that FJTK will make a big killing on the big screen, it will be released as planned. If on the other hand, it appears that the schedule is too crowded for a big opening weekend, Fox will have to either change the date again or go the direct-to-video route. Right now the studio is leaning towards a fairly small 1-2 week release in the largest 10 cities (New York, L.A., Chicago, etc) and then popping it out on video in the late summer. Why? Because by then there will be final word on exactly when season three of American Idol will begin and they can plan to release the video at a time when fans of the show will be going through withdrawals and suffering in the wasteland between AI2 and AI3. They will likely be hungry to snap up anything new associated with the show. The season two DVD will have already been released and peaked sales-wise and the fans will want a fresh fix for their addiction. This also provides Fox and 19 Productions with the chance to do what they love best - cross promote. The video of FJTK can have previews of AI3, as well as previews of the season 2 DVD that will sell a few more copies of that title. Then, when AI3 kicks off, Ryan Seacrest will dutifully remind fans, "From Justin to Kelly is available now at your local video stores, so get your copy today!"

Keep in mind that while you as a fan just want to see the movie and maybe someday own it, those responsible for making it available have to view things in the terms of what will make the most money. This might just mean that we'll just have to be patient and hope things work out in our favor.

Mr. Barker is co-owner of Movie Boss (www.movieboss.com), a free online movie game, and author of "Zippers," a humor column that looks at mistakes in movies. He can be reached at BBarker@movieboss.com.

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