LOS ANGELES — Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the toll of war-related movies that have proved disappointments or outright duds just ticked higher, as audiences spurned “Stop-Loss” over the weekend, despite its hot young cast, an MTV-branded marketing campaign and some glowing reviews.
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Iraq at the Movies
So how could a Hollywood studio possibly entice audiences into seeing the next one?
That’s the challenge awaiting Lionsgate, the distributor of “The Lucky Ones,” a new film directed by Neil Burger (“The Illusionist”) in which Rachel McAdams, Michael Peña and Tim Robbins play soldiers back from Iraq who go on a road trip that is both comical and poignant. And it’s the subject of a polite but intense struggle between the filmmakers and the studio over how to handle a movie that has already seen a couple of release dates discarded. After one Lionsgate executive wept while viewing an early cut in September, the studio briefly considered hurrying “The Lucky Ones” into theaters in time for an awards campaign.
But “In the Valley of Elah” opened soon after and sold less than $7 million in tickets during its entire run. “Rendition” and “Lions for Lambs” followed, faring only slightly better domestically, despite stars including Reese Witherspoon, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep. So the studio and filmmakers agreed it would be wiser to wait till spring.
Nearly six months later, however, the filmmakers are getting antsy. In interviews Mr. Burger and one of his producers, Rick Schwartz, said that Lionsgate seemed paralyzed — unsure how to position “The Lucky Ones” or how to contend with the undeniable fact that moviegoers have shown no appetite for movies about the war.
“They want a hit as much as we want a hit, obviously,” Mr. Schwartz said of Lionsgate executives. “But that begs a whole host of questions. What should we do with this one? Do you do a trailer that’s more light and comedic that hides the fact that it’s really about three soldiers, or do you try to stay as true to the spirit of the film as possible?”
Tom Ortenberg, president of Lionsgate Theatrical Films, nearly conceded that the studio felt uncertain. “We still have a lot of important decisions,” he said. “How broadly do we open? Do we make it a festival play or not? Exactly what direction do the creative materials take?”
But Mr. Ortenberg, who on Friday settled on Oct. 24 as a new release date for “The Lucky Ones,” insisted that he and his team were “energized and enthused” by the challenge, just as they were when marketing “Crash” in 2005 and “Monster’s Ball” in 2001.
“Tough decisions on a terrific film that we all really believe in?” he said. “That’s why we do what we do.”
Mr. Ortenberg also took issue with the idea that “all these movies are failing because the word ‘Iraq’ is mentioned in them.” It is not that simple, but it is not complicated, either, he said; war-related movies have struck consumers as lacking in entertainment value, and “nobody’s looking to go to movies that look like homework.”
The word “Iraq” isn’t uttered in “The Lucky Ones,” as Mr. Ortenberg and the filmmakers helpfully point out. And the one combat scene lasts 40 seconds. But the war hangs over every scene, and in the smallest of ways, as when random civilians keep making a show of thanking the three soldiers for their service. And that is enough to make even the film’s admirers sound like skeptics.
“Talk about being in a bad situation with a movie,” said Glenn Kenny, chief film critic of Premiere.com, who attended a recent screening. “It’s a shame, because it’s a really good, entertaining and even uplifting picture.”
And the director Steven Soderbergh, who is friends with the filmmakers, lamented that “they’re sort of being pulled into this undertow of the predetermined fate of any movie that even touches upon this subject.”
In an interview in October Mr. Burger said that he had dreamed up the $14 million movie (which he wrote with Dirk Wittenborn) after returning from making “The Illusionist” in Prague in 2005, and being struck by how nastily the Iraq war was being debated here, whether by pundits on television or by his own family members.
He also said he was inspired by “The Last Detail,” the 1973 Hal Ashby film with Jack Nicholson and Otis Young as sailors escorting a petty thief to prison. “The Lucky Ones” shares its seriocomic mood, episodic structure and even a few plot points: an odd religious detour, an encounter with prostitutes, a brawl and much bonding.
Mr. Burger conceded that his movie was more political than Ashby’s, which didn’t even mention Vietnam, but only in that “The Lucky Ones” holds up a mirror to a society troubled by the war it is waging.
“To me the comedy is key to getting at this question,” Mr. Burger said. “The humor is like a Trojan horse: it catches the audience off guard, connects them to the heart of the characters and speaks to the essential absurdity-tragedy of their situation.”
With the outspokenly antiwar Mr. Robbins in a starring role, “The Lucky Ones” is likely to engender criticism from the political right. But the film takes no position on the war. In fact, it is the first war-related Hollywood movie that the Army has fully supported with personnel, matériel and technical help, a military adviser confirmed.
Mr. Schwartz added that what sounded patriotic to some might strike others as more nuanced and ironic. “I’ve seen it play as a pure, middle-America road-trip film with heart, but there is the more sophisticated version,” he said.
Playing the comedy too broadly was a concern for Mr. Burger. Though he had already finished the film — and his contract gives him final cut — he said he experimented with removing the short combat scene, or trimming it even more, “to somehow mitigate or minimize the problem, or the perceived problem.”
“But the humor needs to be earned in a movie like this, that’s ultimately a serious movie about serious themes,” Mr. Burger continued. “To not have the more serious scenes to balance out the humor feels somehow disrespectful to these characters.”
That leaves Lionsgate with tough questions and, for the moment at least, few answers. But Mr. Ortenberg said he was unconcerned, and that the film was just fine as is.
“If most critics use the word ‘Iraq’ in the opening sentence of their reviews, we’ll deal with it,” he added. “Do I wish they wouldn’t? Sure. But more than anything, I want them to write that it’s a good movie.”