Mark Gill, the senior vice president Continued on Next Page for publicity at Columbia Pictures, which has four gay-themed films in development, says: " 'Philadelphia' didn't open the door for gay projects. Adlon says that studio distribution executives in 1991 were "scared to death" of a lesbian love story.īut that was then, and this is now. ("Salmonberries" will open in New York in September.) Mr. But it was not until Roxie Releasing took over distribution of the film this year that it was seen outside festivals and retrospectives. Lang, and it won the best film award at the Montreal Film Festival in 1991.
The film, "Salmonberries," had two things going for it. Three years ago, the director Percy Adlon made a film set in Alaska that had at its center a lesbian relationship between an inarticulate orphan girl and a reclusive German woman. Now, people want to see much more realistic films about their lives." Richard Jennings, the executive director of Hollywood Supports, an advocacy group for gay people and for AIDS awareness at the studios, says: "It used to be that we would flock to anything that had gay characters, even if they were ice-pick murderers or people deranged because they were gay. Now you go to bars or marches, and there are people dressed up, dressed down, in black tie - a whole range. If you went to a gay bar, everybody looked the same.
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"One gay film isn't going to satisfy everybody."īarry Krost, who with Doug Chapin is producing "Back Home," a Disney movie about a small town's response to a man with AIDS, says: "There used to be just one common denominator, and that was pornography. "One of the problems with the gay market is to treat it homogeneously," says Chris Pula, president of marketing at New Line Cinema, which two years ago released "Three of Hearts," a film about a lesbian relationship. Some marketing experts believe that it is increasingly difficult to market a film directly to homosexual audiences. The question is, which way will they go? With the mainstream approach used for "Philadelphia," a film that appeared to be a courtroom drama? Or with the two-pronged approach used for "Making Love"? Instead they will have to rely on marketing. Meron.īut none of these films will have the secret ingredient "Philadelphia" had: Tom Hanks, an actor who attracted mainstream audiences to a story about AIDS, an actor who could make even the slow-witted Forrest Gump a national hero.
"Homophobia tends to disappear commensurate with box office gross," says Mr. Neil Meron and Craig Zadan are producing "Falsettos," an adaptation of the Broadway musical, for Disney, and, for Warner Brothers, "The Mayor of Castro Street," a biography of Harvey Milk, the slain San Francisco gay rights advocate. "Jeffrey," based on Paul Rudnick's Off Broadway play, has just completed filming Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo are playing drag queens in "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar," a Universal Studios film. Twelve years later, the enormous success of Tri-Star's "Philadelphia" (a movie about AIDS that made $77 million domestically) has ignited studio interest in gay projects. Ontkean, who had his arm wrapped around a shirtless Mr. Ads in mainstream publications pictured the three nicely tailored stars huddled innocently. The studio had a dual marketing campaign that would reassure heterosexuals while enticing a gay audience. "The picture was ready," Daniel Melnick, the movie's co-producer, says. "Making Love" was a critical and commercial flop. BACK IN 1982, 20TH CENtury Fox tested the market for gay-themed movies with "Making Love." It starred Harry Hamlin as a homosexual home-wrecker who inserts himself between the happily married Kate Jackson and Michael Ontkean.