SHORT TAKES / MOVIES : MGM Heartened by Tomei’s Nomination
One of the biggest surprises in the Oscar nominations was Marisa Tomei in the best supporting actress category, for her role as the loudmouth sidekick to Joe Pesci in last spring’s largely forgotten box-office hit “My Cousin Vinny.”
But no one was more delighted than the folks at MGM, the distributor of the actress’ current movie, “Untamed Heart.” Tomei co-stars in the romantic film by director Tony Bill with Christian Slater and Rosie Perez.
“We were hoping for her,” said Bob Dingilian, MGM’s executive vice president of worldwide marketing. “When someone is nominated for an acting achievement in a film, it falls over to their other films. Especially when they’re in a film that just opened six days earlier.
“We start advertising her nomination in Friday’s ads for ‘Untamed Heart.’ And she’s doing satellite interviews to the press in about 20 cities Friday morning.”
He said MGM managed to increase the size of some Sunday newspaper ads just after the nominations were announced Wednesday morning.
Last weekend, “Untamed Heart” managed only a soft $4.1 million in its first four days at the box-office.
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