Director Blasts Plan to Send Film to Cable

Rodrigo Garcia, the director of MGM’s “Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her,” lashed out at the studio Friday for its decision to release the film on cable television rather than in movie theaters.

The film, whose cast includes Holly Hunter, Glenn Close, Calista Flockhart, Amy Brenneman and Cameron Diaz, was originally scheduled for theatrical release this summer. The date was subsequently pushed back to the fall.

On Thursday, United Artists, MGM’s specialty film division, announced it had made a deal instead with Showtime after months of debating whether the film could survive in today’s intensely competitive marketplace without millions of dollars for advertising and publicity.

Although it is not unusual for a studio to pull its theatrical distribution of a small film in favor of a cable release, Garcia said he was stunned and disappointed.

“The truth is that MGM never knew what to do with the movie,” Garcia said. “It was inept of them to buy it if they never knew what to do with it. First we had a January start date, then a June start date, then July, then August. They created such a confusion in the media that reviews [have already been published].”

The film is a look at the lives of several lonely women in Los Angeles and how they intersect. The studio picked it up after reading Garcia’s script, before filming was completed. Garcia said he was perplexed by MGM’s decision to go to cable because studio executives knew exactly what the movie was about from the outset.

“Of course it’s financially risky. I understand that. But then why did they buy it?” Garcia asked. “In the trades they are referred to as ‘the lion’ [a reference to the famous MGM logo]--well, they are wimps.”

Studio executives said they were big fans of the film but didn’t believe it could survive in today’s cutthroat film market.

“We believe overall this is the right way to introduce this unique and heartfelt film, with wonderfully outstanding performances from a stellar group of actresses, to the largest possible audience,” said Larry Gleason, president of worldwide distribution for MGM and co-head of United Artists with Jerry Rich.

The buzz around the movie at this year’s Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals did not help. “Most people were saying this should be a cable movie,” said one source at the studio. MGM executives figure the film will find a larger audience on Showtime--which reaches up to 16 million viewers nationwide--than in theaters.

The pay-TV channel plans to play it in January.