David Lynch Secures US/Canada Rights to Inland Empire

He will probably do some kind of pay-per-view thing on his website and maybe a very limited theatrical release as well. I think it's cool.

any trailers anywhere?

I think he will probably try for a little more than a very limited theatrical release. Lynch has always been very vocal that his films are intented to be seen in the theater. It's hard to imagine he would just dump this onto video without making a big push for the big screen. Remember how much he got out there are pushed the release of Lost Highway when it crashed with the critics and it looked like it was headed straight to video? Well who knows. If Lynch is one thing, he's pretty unpredicatable.

If a person has the money for the project, as Lynch probably does throuh Studio Canal, getting a film to play wide theatrically is not a problem - due to service deals (a filmmaker or a producer can hire a distributor to get the film out to as many theaters as they want, & then pay for all the expenses incurred by the distributor & a fee for their work, w/ the filmmaker keeping all the money made at the box office, & there are many possible variations to the service deal arrangement). The film An American Haunting was an indie that played on more then 1500 screens due to a service deal arrangement. Also, on the bigger budget self-distribution through service deals we have the examples of the recent Lucas/Star Wars flicks & of course Gibson/Passion of Christ. On a much smaller scale there is Truly Indie, which is a Landmark Theaters operation, but that too takes away the need for the filmmaker to call every theater himself - basically easier then a 100% indie self-distribution situation such as Lance Weiler's Head Trauma which happened this year.

I am guessing that the Inland Empire theatrical release will be relatively wide for an indie film. Probably as many theaters as Mulholland Drive. Of course we will have to see what develops as not many details are yet revealed re: Lynch's self-distro effort.

Looking forward to checking out the bizarre & interesting sounding Empire.

- Sujewa
http://www.wilddiner.com/

tim t. - No trailers that I can find yet; Studio Canal doesn't appear to have it on their web site either.

Sujewa - Thanks for the insight. I was actually thinking more along the lines of self-distro a la 'Head Trauma' or perhaps your own 'Date Number One' -- the image of Lynch visiting a different town each week and four-walling his movie in barns and backyards sounded romantic -- but a service deal could make a lot of sense if the money is there for Lynch. At least there's a possibility that we won't have to wait too long to see it.