“I’m Ready For My Close-Up, Mister .com”
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Written By Reprise Media | July 27, 2006 | Share This
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Everybody wants to make movies, and who can blame them? Making movies is fun, and sometimes profitable. Accordingly, etailer Amazon.com will throw its hat into the cinematic ring, having purchased the screen rights to Keith Donahue’s best-selling fantasy novel “The Stolen Child.”
Marketing Shift links to the Variety story (warning: sentences may lack definite articles) explaining the details of the venture. Amazon wants to prove its marketing clout by successfully pumping the theatrical and home video release of the feature film. The deal for the novel’s rights was brokered by the United Talent Agency (UTA), which had previously worked with Amazon to put together the web-only show “Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher.”
That scope of that project, however, is decidedly narrower than adapting “The Stolen Child” for the silver screen promises to be. The movie will be a live-action version of the novel, which is based on myths about changelings, “faery” babies that are secretly exchanged for human babies in the middle of the night. Amazon, a virgin in the film production game, hasn’t signed up anyone to help make or distribute the movie yet (a director, a studio partner), so observers can be forgiven if they detect fantasy elements in Amazon’s scheme.
Not that we think it’s destined to fail, but with the announcement coming hot on the heels of Amazon’s disappointing Q2 earnings report, the idea has the sinking feel of a lead balloon. It might be a better idea for Amazon, whose expertise lies in ecommerce, to set its house in order before sinking a lot of resources into a costly motion picture that’s by no means a sure thing (even if it’s based on a best-seller).
Topics: ECommerce, Media Convergence |