‘Aviator’ goes on vacation

When the holidays come to Hollywood, the entertainment industry packs its collective bags and heads to Aspen and Vale, Palm Springs, Vegas

This year, “The Aviator” will be right there with them. In a move that film industry sources say isn’t unprecedented, but still very clever, Miramax Films is opening the film today in some strategic vacation locales where industry types like to spend the Christmas holidays.

So in addition to New York, L.A. and San Francisco, “The Aviator,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a young Howard Hughes, will open in artsy or rustic vacation towns like Taos, N.M., Telluride, Colo., Jackson Hole, Wyo., Park City, Utah, and Ketchum, Idaho.

Miramax hopes that between the skiing, golfing and tanning those vacationing Oscar voters will make time to check out the movie.

“The strategy is, obviously, since the [movie] awards season is shorter, we felt last year not enough people saw ‘Cold Mountain’ to consider it,” said Miramax spokeswoman Amanda Lundberg.

“All we want to do is give them an opportunity to see [‘The Aviator’] on the screen.”

There is, she added, no guarantee that any Oscar voters will go see “The Aviator” in these resort towns while they are vacationing, “but it doesn’t hurt us to do it.”

And DVDs of the Martin Scorsese-directed film will still be sent to Oscar voters.

“It’s a great strategy,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “People do go to the movies while on vacation. Most of the time, these movies aren’t available in smaller towns.”

“The Aviator” is opening in 40 theaters, but will expand to about 1,500 theaters on Christmas Day.