Lions Gate Roars Over 5 Nominations

Mark Urman remembers first setting his sights on an Oscar for Ian McKellen, star of “Gods and Monsters,” at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The fact that Urman’s newly born company, Lions Gate Films Releasing, hadn’t bought the film yet only sharpened his appetite.

“The whole architecture of our Oscar campaign was planned out before we acquired the film last June,” said Urman, a longtime publicist before he became co-president of Lions Gate. “When we were in negotiations, we told the producers that if we couldn’t close the deal by June 1, all bets were off. We needed that much time to promote and screen the film.”

Lions Gate’s planning paid off Tuesday. Going up against major studios with far more marketing muscle, the tiny independent film company earned three nominations for “Gods and Monsters”: best actor for McKellen, supporting actress for Lynn Redgrave and adapted screenplay for Bill Condon. And Lions Gate’s “Affliction” earned two nominations: best actor for Nick Nolte and supporting actor for James Coburn. Five nominations in major categories--not bad for a company in business for a year.

“I guess I must have been a little nervous and tense, since I’ve already sweated through my shirt,” said Lions Gate co-president Tom Ortenberg, fielding phone calls at 6:45 a.m. in the company’s offices on Wilshire Boulevard.

“What happened today is wonderful. For a company like ours to walk away with five Oscar nominations is pretty incredible.”

The mood in the company’s New York offices was equally jubilant. “There was a lot of screaming and whooping,” said Urman, who installed cable TV in the office so his staff could watch the announcements. “This is exactly what you live for.”

The nominations were the culmination of a carefully orchestrated campaign that proved that an underdog company like Lions Gate can compete for Oscars, even in an era of global media behemoths. The typical studio Oscar campaign can cost as much as $750,000 to $2 million, with most of the money paying for TV spots, film re-releases and the ubiquitous Oscar “For Your Consideration” ads that run in the Hollywood trade papers from November to late January, when the nomination ballots close.

Lions Gate executives estimate they spent roughly $150,000 each to promote “Gods and Monsters” and “Affliction.”

Viewed against its competition, Lions Gate often seemed overwhelmed. Miramax, which collected 13 Oscar nominations for “Shakespeare in Love,” had the resources to run full-page, full-color ads for a wealth of acting contenders. By comparison, Lions Gate largely went with quarter-page, black-and-white ads for its actor hopefuls. (The full-page ads for Redgrave, who won a supporting actress Golden Globe for her performance in “Gods and Monsters,” were paid for by her husband-manager, John Clark.)

“Trade ads are definitely overused and overrated,” Ortenberg said. “You just get numb after a while. Most of our resources went into paying particular attention to critic groups by mailing screening copies or having screening programs for our films.”

The company, known as Cinepix Films until it was purchased last January by the Vancouver-based Lions Gate Entertainment, is best known for releasing difficult films that have been rejected by more high-flying independents. “Gods and Monsters,” which features McKellen as 1930s horror film director James Whale in his sunset years, found no buyers when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last year. “Affliction,” which stars Nolte as a boozy small-town sheriff whose personal life is in shambles, debuted at the 1997 Telluride Film Festival without finding a distributor until Lions Gate acquired it in April.

“Gods and Monsters” has shown up on many critics’ Top 10 lists, yet it is only playing on 100 screens in about 30 markets around the country, where it has earned just over $3 million. Lions Gate expects the film to get a healthy box-office bump from its Oscar bounty. Ortenberg spent Tuesday on the phone with exhibitors, using the nominations as leverage to book the film into new markets.

“It’s exciting,” said Bill Sanders, the company’s general sales manager. “I’ve never had 10 messages before 7 a.m. in my life, all from exhibitors wanting to book the picture or bring it back.”

Ortenberg was so confident of a strong Oscar showing that he had already had a mock-up of a “Gods and Monsters” newspaper ad on his desk, topped with a banner saying “Two Academy Award Nominations.” The film actually earned three nominations, “so it did better than we thought,” he said. “The nominations will really help us break out of the art-house ghetto.” Lions Gate has booked the film into an additional 150 screens this weekend, and plans to add another 250 screens Feb. 19.

In addition to its in-house publicity staff, Lions Gate hired a consultant, veteran publicist Susan Pile, to help coordinate its Golden Globe and Oscar campaigns. It also hired an outside publicist, Mike Hall, who specializes in planting Oscar-related items with such nationally syndicated columnists as Liz Smith, Jeannie Williams and Marilyn Beck.

Although “Gods and Monsters” focuses on the fictional relationship between Whale and a young gardener, played by Brendan Fraser, awards groups showered praise on Redgrave for her role as Whale’s devoted housekeeper. Lions Gate, which had initially run ads featuring McKellen and Fraser, quickly shifted gears, opting for McKellen with Redgrave.

Lions Gate kept its Oscar campaign for “Affliction” under wraps until late in the game--and for a compelling reason. The film was so bleak that Lions Gate decided not to send out academy screeners until after the Christmas holidays.

“The film was so dark and disturbing that it was out of the question for people to see it until they’d had a chance to read the great reviews,” Urman said. “It’s the kind of movie where you need to prepare people for the experience.”