BLOGS > Magnolia Pictures are Pushers

CINEMATICAL.COM: Magnolia Pictures, the distribution company owned by 2929's Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, has acquired the rights to a trio of Danish crime films collectively known as The Pusher Trilogy. All three films - Pusher, With Blood on My Hands, and The Angel of Death - were directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, and feature overlapping stories: secondary characters from one film move into the foreground in the others.

While the chance to see these films is more than enough to make the acquisition newsworthy, Magnolia - the distributor behind Bubble's simultaneous, multi-media release - plans to experiment with an unconventional release schedule for The Pusher Trilogy, as well. When the series hits American theaters this summer, different regions will see it in different ways, depending on "the audiences in each market." Among the options being considered are back-to-back screenings of all three films, simultaneous screenings in different theaters, and sequential screenings on three different days. After pissing off theater owners with their approach to Bubble, a Magnolia rep hastened to add that the Pusher "release pattern also will depend on each theater's preferred release strategy." Whew.

Regardless of if you agree with what Cuban and Wagner are doing, it's hard not to respect them for constantly searching for new ways to approach film distribution. Plus, they're giving us the opportunity to see interesting work from abroad, which is something that shouldn't be lost in the inevitable controversy over the release of the films.