Will Christmas Presence Count at Oscar Time? : Movies: Releasing a film at year’s end to qualify for the Academy Awards sometimes pays off big--remember ‘Driving Miss Daisy’?--but it can also prove costly.

Call it the Christmas rush of Oscar hopefuls.

Every year, the Hollywood studios and independent film companies pop certain movies into theaters a week or two before the end of the year so they can qualify for Academy Award consideration.

Usually they appear in select major markets, namely Los Angeles and New York. Sometimes runs in Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco are included. After the mandatory seven-day qualification run, some films are plucked from the screens and re-released in late January or early February. Others cling on, trying to grab for more screens, vying fitfully for audience attention against the crowded season’s big competitors.

Regardless of the strategy, last-minute Oscar qualifiers are a costly marketing maneuver--in more ways than one.

A one- or two-week Oscar push is expensive, says Samuel Goldwyn Co. President Meyer Gottlieb. “And you’re not fooling anybody if you’re trying to sell sizzle where it doesn’t exist.”

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Simply put, an early release in limited markets can trigger critical reviews. Lower-budget art fare, in particular, needs positive reviews and strong word of mouth to build momentum for more playing time in theaters. Negative reviews can sink a film early, since word of a clinker spreads quickly through the national press. And stench on a picture can often kill its chances of opening in small towns months later, marketing and distribution executives say.

Still, it’s a gamble plenty are willing to take.

This year, there is a plethora of such offerings: TriStar’s “Legends of the Fall,” Columbia’s “Little Women” and “Immortal Beloved,” Fine Line Features’ “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” and “Death and the Maiden,” Miramax’s “Tom & Viv” and “Camilla,” 20th Century Fox’s “Nell,” Goldwyn’s “The Madness of King George,” New Line’s “Safe Passage” and Paramount’s “Nobody’s Fool.”

Miramax’s ads are already touting the nods from the Golden Globes and National Board of Review for Miranda Richardson as best actress for “Tom & Viv.” The board nominated Rosemary Harris for best supporting actress as well. That film, which opened in New York and L.A. Dec. 2, was pulled back after a two-week run in New York. It is still playing in L.A. Miramax’s other contender “Camilla,” released in L.A. and New York Dec. 16, was pulled Thursday.

Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein says that his reason for pulling films back and re-releasing them in mid-January is clear-cut. He doesn’t want his “sophisticated” product getting lost in the traffic of some 20-plus films over the next few weeks.

“Look at all the movies out there now. Twenty of them are going to be lousy anyway and many will disappear next month,” says Weinstein. “Our purpose is to get (Oscar) nominations.

“For us, this has always worked. It worked with (1990’s) ‘The Grifters,’ which we played for a week in L.A. and New York, pulled it and then brought it back in January,” he explains. “We got five Academy Award nominations. That gave the film such momentum. (1992’s) ‘Passion Fish’ was another. We had it out for a week, but we felt it did so well, we decided to let it run through.”

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But the pull-back strategy doesn’t always work. Remember 1991’s “Kafka”?

Most don’t, Weinstein admits. “We opened that film for a one-week Oscar qualifier, pulled it and nobody cared.”

Duds can sucker punch the studios too.

Warner Bros., which used the one-week Oscar-qualifier strategy with blitzkrieg success for 1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy” (a film that eventually grabbed four Oscars including best picture), saw its genius backfire with Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Sheltering Sky” the following year.

“I opened ‘Sheltering Sky’ the same way as ‘Miss Daisy’ but it got terrible reviews,” says Barry Reardon, Warners’ president of distribution. “I remember we opened it Dec. 12, 1990, in L.A., New York and Toronto, because a lot of academy members live there. I spread it the first week of January but I was dead in the water. It played about two weeks. ‘The Saint of Fort Washington’ was another terrific film that just didn’t work.”

So, says Reardon, “if you open the movie and you don’t get the reviews you need, you’re dead. It’s that simple.”

The cost of early hype can be a killer on several fronts.

“Consider that the costs promoting a typical Miramax picture run anywhere from $150,000 to $250,000 in newspaper and TV ads,” he says. “For a studio, early release on a big film with maybe 600 prints could run $2.5-to-$3 million. If you pull a picture back and put it out again, you’re looking at repeating those costs.”

Putting aside that expense for a minute, Reardon suggests, “you’re still caught in an enormous trap.” That being, “If you did an early release in limited markets and got lukewarm reviews, you’ve got the filmmaker and producer on your ass for rushing it out there in the first place.”

But when the strategy does work, the results can be sweet indeed.

“ ‘Miss Daisy’ has become the textbook case of last-minute Oscar qualifiers,” notes Reardon. “I opened that picture in Toronto, L.A. and New York on Dec. 13, 1989. My plan was to follow the (critics’) best lists, the Golden Globes, all the way to the Oscar nominations (in February). Every time one of those things came up, I added more theaters. It was probably the best thing I ever did as far as the release of the movie and it’s been imitated many times sense. Remember a little movie called ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’?”

Fox is banking on similar results for “Nell.” Hoping to snare a best actress Oscar nomination for Jodie Foster, the studio opened the picture in L.A. and New York Dec. 14 and by Friday it was in 10 theaters. On Sunday, the movie, which picked up three Golden Globe nominations including best picture, will be in 835 theaters. Paramount too is shooting for a windfall with a best actor Oscar plug for Paul Newman in “Nobody’s Fool,” which bows Sunday in New York and L.A. Newman also picked up a best actor Golden Globe nomination. Paramount marketing/distribution head Barry London plans to widen the movie to about 800 theaters on Jan. 13. He doesn’t fear a ghost from Christmas past: “We did this last year with ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ We got an Oscar nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio but the public just didn’t respond as we had hoped.”

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As for the other studios, Columbia and its sister company TriStar have three last-minute contenders between them. Columbia’s “Immortal Beloved,” with Gary Oldman playing the frenzied genius composer Ludwig van Beethoven, opened Dec. 16 in four cities with plans to go wider Jan. 6 and Jan. 27. The other Columbia hopeful is “Little Women,” based on the Louisa May Alcott classic, which opens wide Sunday.

TriStar’s “Legends of the Fall,” which the studio anticipates could carry Brad Pitt over the top as a major box-office star, opens in six theaters in New York and L.A. Sunday and spreads wide Jan. 13. The movie was a surprise Globe contender with four nods, including best picture.

Gerry Rich, head of worldwide marketing at MGM/UA, who formerly worked at Miramax, is a veteran at knowing when the process works and when it doesn’t. “It really helps the independents’ underdog films.”

Like others, Rich says that when the accolades don’t roll in and the film is pulled, then re-released later, there’s often “a feeling with exhibitors that the picture is tainted goods.” He says, “They may be hesitant about running it in the future. So it’s impossible to relaunch without adequate fanfare.” And “if you, say, had two movies you were going to relaunch, you could easily end up spending $800,000 total and that still may not work.”

Relaunching is the last thing Fine Line, New Line and Goldwyn are considering.

All have last-minute Oscar qualifiers they plan to let run through and fan out into wider release over time.

Goldwyn will release “The Madness of King George” in L.A. and New York Wednesday and by mid-January will show it in 10 markets. More cities will be added Feb. 17. “We don’t think it’s an effective marketing strategy to pull a picture once it’s out there and re-release it months later. You confuse people,” Gottlieb says.

In fact, Fine Line President Ira Deutchman says he thinks Miramax is the only player who still follows the old rules. (Fine Line’s “Mrs. Parker” opened Nov. 23 in New York and Wednesday in L.A., while “Death and the Maiden” hit select theaters in those cities Friday.) “Everyone used to take Miramax’s approach,” Deutchman say. “But start-up advertising costs are so high. That’s the point of launching at the end of the year--to generate heat and keep it fresh in people’s minds.”

Besides, he adds, “you want to be at your widest release, if by chance, some lucky chance, you win the big one next year.”

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