You might not remember director Luis Mandoki’s latest film Trapped, but that’s precisely the point. Originally titled 24 Hours and scheduled for an early 2002 theatrical release, the film was finally dumped into theaters in late September ‘03 under the name Trapped. With a shockingly low opening week gross of $3.2 million, word quickly spread that Trapped’s actors had been told not to do any kind of promotion for the film.
Waterworld, The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Ishtar are obvious and glaring failures. Punchlines for late night talk show hosts years after their original releases and perfect examples of everything that is wrong with Hollywood productions, these films are considered mega-disasters.
Director Luis Mandoki’s latest film, Trapped, doesn’t necessarily fit in with this group of supreme misfits; it didn’t have a nine figure budget, end up years over schedule or feature its lead calling the film "boring as a dog’s ass." Trapped is deserving of examination in this column because, for starters, it only grossed $1,442 per theater its opening weekend. However, the main reason Trapped made this column is because Columbia Pictures’ marketing executives made the very unusual move of prohibiting the actors from promoting Trapped’s release before it hit theaters in September of 2002.
In order to appreciate how very unusual this is, one must have some understanding of the pre-release promotional schedule the grand majority of studio films follow. If a film is to be released on September 20, 2002 (as Trapped was), critics’ screenings of the film will begin about a month beforehand. After the critic screenings there is usually a press junket, where journalists and entertainment reporters are flown to a hotel for a weekend where they have an opportunity to interview the film’s stars and be quoted saying good things about the film. TV spots will then start showing two to three weeks prior to the release date and roughly three to four days before the release, the actors or director (if he’s a big enough name) will appear on the talk shows with David Letterman, Regis, Oprah, etc. to plug the film’s release. For 95% of films, once the movie opens, the promotion is done. In rare cases, like that of Old School, most recently, some promotion will continue during the film’s theatrical release.
Trapped, however, didn’t get the benefit of any of this publicity, though. There were no critics’ screenings. There was no junket. The actors didn’t appear on any talk shows for it. There were some TV spots advertising Trapped and some minimal print ads, but really the only publicity Trapped got was, quizzically, about the publicity it wasn’t getting.
There was really only one reason for this. Trapped’s plot focuses on a kidnapping. Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love conspire to kidnap Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend’s child. Despite the fact that fewer children than average were kidnapped in America during the summer of 2002, the media seemed to pick up on every case there was and broadcast it to scores of horrified parents. With the Elizabeth Smart case, among others, fresh on everyone’s mind, Trapped’s release date was pushed back from its original date during the second quarter of 2002, to August 23 and then finally to September 20 when the memories of the media blitz covering the kidnappings had faded slightly. The result was a box office take of under $7 million and an opening weekend of just less than half of that number. Trapped was, but anyone’s standards, a complete and total flop. If you’ve ever been curious about the effect marketing has on a picture’s bottom line, Trapped is the perfect example.
