It’s pretty damn unprecedented that Johannes Roberts’ 47 Meters Down (read our review) is being released into thousands of theaters this weekend, because the original plan was for the shark attack thriller to go direct-to-video.
To make a long story short, Dimension Films was primed and ready to release the film on DVD last August (under the title In the Deep), but Freestyle Media came out of nowhere, swooped it up, and decided to bring it to theaters. This all happened literally a week before the DVD was to be released – some stores even put it on shelves early, which makes this whole thing even crazier.
So what happened? Why did Freestyle Media have so much faith in 47 Meters Down and how did it go from being dumped onto video to having its own freakin’ Snapchat filter and massive cardboard standee in movie theaters across the country? As is often the case in Hollywood, it was another film that paved the way for 47 Meters Down to go wide.
As it turns out, it was the box office success of The Shallows last summer that directly led to Freestyle scooping up 47 Meters Down and unleashing it on the big screen.
“We were in post-production when they started on The Shallows,” Roberts explained to Dread Central. “But theirs was a studio movie that had a lot of money, and moved fast. I think we just didn’t have the money to compete with them, but then the movie worked super well and we could have got caught up a little bit. The Weinsteins were not sure what to do with it, and then you know what? The Shallows ended up to be a great thing for us. It did super well, it proved people are really interested in the genre.”
He continued, “So yeah, it was a funny time, but this happens all the time in film, you’re working on something and something else comes out and if they have more money and clout they can beat you to the cinemas. So it’s good and it’s bad, you just have to roll with it, you can’t get too angry or caught up in it.”
Here’s hoping 47 Meters Down does well enough to pave the way for more shark movies.
