Was ‘Price’ Boxed In by Marketing Plan?

New Line Cinema’s recent boxing drama “Price of Glory” suffered a TKO the minute it stepped into the ring last Friday. In its first weekend, the $12-million picture took in only $1.5 million at the box office, finishing out of the Top 10. With such a weak opening, it is unlikely the movie will survive in wide release much longer.

Its apparent failure is disappointing because the film initially showed promise. It tested very well among audiences and focus groups and stars a popular TV actor, Jimmy Smits. Although most critics gave the film mixed to negative reviews, it seemed to be an audience-pleaser, with most moviegoers giving it “excellent” ratings in exit polls.

The producers and others who worked on “Price” say that New Line led a misguided marketing campaign that targeted the movie primarily at Latino audiences instead of portraying it as a universal story about a boxing family.

“The marketing of the film initially relied on a ‘Latino niche’ movie approach,” said Moctesuma Esparza, one of the film’s producers. “That pegged this as an ethnic movie--which it is not. It happens to star Latinos, but this is a mainstream American movie in English.”

“Rocky,” for instance, was played as an American story about an Italian American boxer, not an Italian-themed movie for Italian American audiences only.

“What happened was very simple,” said another producer on the film, Arthur Friedman. “Too much was focused on the Spanish-speaking media. Jimmy Smits is a mainstream star. This movie needed to be advertised to the mainstream on television. New Line didn’t do anything wrong here intentionally. They had their [own] idea of what they wanted to do.”

But the studio disputes that argument. “New Line fully supported ‘Price of Glory’ with a comprehensive marketing and distribution campaign,” said New Line spokesman Steve Elzer. “For the second week, we are targeting markets where the film was successful.”

To be sure, New Line’s $2.2-million Spanish-language campaign--led by veteran marketer Santiago Pozo--seemed to garner some results, with theaters in areas with heavy Latino populations doing the best. For example, Universal City and Chatsworth averaged $12,000 per screen compared to Granada Hills with an $820 and Foothill with a $601 per-screen average. The producers estimate New Line spent about $6 million on English-language marketing.

Pozo believes that the producers were “too ambitious and that the film was released too wide. This is not ‘La Bamba.’ ”

Strategy Changes Planned for the Second Weekend

New Line has decided to revamp its release this weekend by focusing an English-language campaign in the Southwest, where the film did best, according to Esparza. It is also planning to funnel more money into a mainstream English marketing campaign for this weekend, targeting teenagers it might have missed the first time around.

“Price” is a drama about an overbearing father and former boxer who lives vicariously through his sons’ boxing careers. It stars Smits as the father and former Golden Gloves boxer John Seda as one of the sons. The film, directed by first-timer Carlos Avila, was written by former New York Times boxing correspondent Phil Berger.

What happened to “Price of Glory” may be a good lesson for future filmmakers and studios interested in marketing films starring Latino talent, industry observers say.

“They didn’t understand the marketplace and that the Latino audience is more integrated into the white culture than the black audience,” said one marketing executive who has been following the movie’s tribulations. “There was a schism in the executive ranks at New Line that prevented a unified front on their marketing position. They should’ve gone for this one--especially the way it was screening.”

Executives at New Line declined to comment on the marketing plan.

Grass-Roots Campaign Started Late

From the beginning, sources say, the studio missed opportunities with “Price.”

The film’s English-language grass-roots/opinion-maker screenings, which help generate buzz for movies, began late. Grass-roots organizing can be a strong addition to a TV and radio advertising campaign, but it entails months of preparation, with screenings, follow-up phone calls and community group organizing, said Danny Haro, who handled the grass-roots campaign for “Price.” With “Price of Glory,” Haro began only three weeks before the film opened, traveling to 10 cities.

“It was very tough with the amount of time we had,” said Haro, who also handled the successful “Mi Familia” campaign. “One screening in one city does not make a word-of-mouth campaign. It just makes it hard when you don’t have advertising and publicity behind what you are doing.”

Smits agreed to host the ESPN annual awards ceremony in mid-March, thinking that the studio would plug the film with nationwide advertising. But the ads were broadcast on a regional basis, missing some markets. And Los Angeles’ ads were not broadcast due to a production mishap at the cable station.

Most of the English-language television advertisements were aired a week before the film’s opening mainly on networks like the WB and Fox during late-night shows. There were very few buys made on network television during prime time, according to Esparza. This time around, ads will also be aired on MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite to catch a younger audience, said Friedman.

Though many are disappointed with the way this movie was handled, some are willing to give New Line praise for its intentions, if not the results. At least, they note, the studio is making films that star Latinos and recently signed a six-picture deal with director Gregory Nava to make Latino-themed films.

“This is certainly not good--but I’m not going to say it’s going to get harder to make movies [starring Latinos] because right now it’s damn near impossible,” said David Valdes, one of the producers of “The Green Mile,” who moderated a Directors Guild panel discussion on “Price of Glory” on Tuesday. “A lot of people had their dreams set on this film as being the movie that would break through. I would hope they would learn from their marketing campaign domestically and rethink their campaign overseas . . . and I bet it will be strong on video.”