EXCLUSIVE: I’m told that Warner Bros will now aggressively push Diane English’s remake of The Women skedded for release September 12th with wider distribution and bigger marketing in the wake of the success of Sex And The City. This is an about-face from the studio’s earlier decision to leave plans intact for about-to-shutter Picturehouse to debut the chick flick in limited release and with a small P&A. But after weeks of hemming and hawing, Warner Bros now believes that the low budget $16.5M remake could make money.
I’m told that as a result The Women‘s marketing budget has moved north from a planned $7M-$8M to $25M-$30M. Back on June 2nd, I criticized Warner Bros for sitting on a pic written, directed and produced by one of the biz’s best women comedy writers (of seminal Murphy Brown fame), and starring a quality cast of Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Bette Midler, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Debi Mazur, Joanna Gleason, Carrie Fisher, Lynn Whitfield and Cloris Leachman. Forget about the merits of the movie: there’s potential for box office moolah stirred up by some savvy Sex-exploiting, Even if the movie is no good, it could reach SATC‘s two-quadrant audience with ad slogans like: “If you loved Sex And The City, then you need to see The Women who started it all.” After I posted, a top Warner Bros exec phoned me and said, “We should give it another look.” And the studio did. I bet women eager for another pic about female friendships and upscale lifestyles and urban sex will open The Women for a $20+M weekend. If not, well, I don’t own Time Warner stock.
Why Won’t Warner Embrace ‘The Women’? Or Will It?





does anyone own tw stock?
I love your play on words describing the writer of the seminal Murphy Brown…lol
Love the blog Nikki — your SAG news has been the only news I trust.
Please don’t forget that it is produced by Mick Jagger and Victoria Pearman, from what I’ve heard, the movie was in the drawer for some time, until they came aboard as producers.
I just don’t understand this tendency among certain executives to let a picture that might actually make money, sink into oblivion, over what usually turns out to be ego.
I wish the film luck. It’s not my kind of movie, but I’m man enough to admit that Hollywood needs to make more than just my kind of movie.
I would never buy TW stock – because it’s stupidly managed, and because of its misogynistic policies (which dovetail with its stupid management.)
I doubt the receipts (gross) will even match the marketing budget. There’s not a whole generation of teen girls who watched this on TBS, unlike Sex and the City.
Besides, women are over-served in the entertainment marketplace the way young men are under-served. TV competes as an alternative for them the way it doesn’t for young men. There’s no young men version of CW for example.
I agree that releasing this can pick up a few bucks. But given all the competition out there on TV, no one should expect anything. No one is screaming to see Bette Midler.
Well, I suppose it’s in WB’s best interest to add some more money to the marketing budget to get a bigger opening, but that trailer really is awful. Do people still care about Meg Ryan?
The real potential fall hit WB has is He’s Just Not That Into You. The trailer played so well in the audience I was in for Sex and the City. It’s a more relevant cast and looks a million times funnier than The Women.
No offense to all involved but I saw the trailer this week (playing with the hyper-violent “Mongol” of all things) and it looks awful. Clearly I’m not the target audience, and yes the target audience (adult women) is way underserved by the studios, but still this looks really painful.
We’re talking “Love Guru” painful.
No men’s version of the CW?
What the heck are the Military Channel, Discovery Channel, Spike, FX, ESPN, ESPN2?
@Comment by cgeye — June 30, 2008 @ 1:17 am
they are all second tier cable networks for the most part and Discovery Channel is simply for anyone who is not utterly daft.
I will bet $5 and my right one The Women won’t make back it’s $50 millions (budget + press)
Simply sitting on it and eating it would have been pretty dumb at the old numbers, but at the new metrics they are going to take a bath on this one.
I had the ‘joy’ of reading this for a few markets and told every investor to pass on it. Seeing the new press budget I’d tell them to run faster.
That’s why I love showbiz. Everything can change over a single weekend, here we have WB, a studio that couldn’t make a movie for women unless the female protagonist was wearing a cape or was a robot suddenly striving to make inroads on female skewing films.
Of course, if The Women underperforms then that could all change. Again.
Perhaps it’s time for WB to dust off some prize projects they’ve had lying around collecting dust. How about kicking that Dickey Chapelle biopic that had Jennifer Aniston attached back into life?
Get on it Nikki.
To those saying that nobody will see this movie because all the actresses have seen better days are forgetting another Bette Midler flick – The First Wives Club – which gave all the women a comeback because audiences had missed seeing them and it was something a group of women (and gay men) could see together instead of the usual movies with an explosion every ten seconds. Will the movie make Titanic numbers? Of course not. But it’ll be a nice sized hit at the domestic box office and do very well in Europe (where older actresses aren’t treated like they’re worse than shit) and ancillary markets. It’ll more than make its money back.
The ad looks no more stupid than the ones for the men’s movies. Let us (women) have our failures too. For every woman’s movie that fails, 150 men’s movies fail. No one talks about not making those. It’s the same argument that’s made about black movies. That is until Tyler Perry comes along and proves them wrong.
I hope it does well, but isn’t this another case of one thing hits and everyone thinks there is a huge demand for “chick Flicks” now? Sex and The City had a huge built in following. The cast is AMAZING I agree, but most men I know would rather go to the dentist.
I hope this movie does well, so I really hope WB tries to attract the right crowd: women over 30-35 and NOT teens and women in their twenties. And not to the exact same crowd as SATC (which I didn’t see even though I loved the show; I felt it was just a movie made to make loads of money) cuz as someone pointed out, that show had been on telly for years.
Hooray! Everyone’s favorite movie that they haven’t even seen yet is getting a big release… (And if you don’t love Murphy Brown, you’re a dirty Commie.)
VOTE NO ON THE AFTRA DEAL!!! Don’t let the producers FOOL you!!! AFTRA NEW CONTRACT is A SHAM!!! And what you offering SAG is Terrible… TRUTH be told…
EXAMPLES of Truth be told:
1. A SAG Background performer in 1988 was making $175/8 hour day and now they make $130/8 while the PRODUCERS continue to make BILLIONS of DOLLARS – YES BILLIONS!!! WHAT THE “F” is wrong with that Picture??
2. PRODUCERS are offering NO addition to the 30 cents a mile that has been in effect for the PAST 20 years… HELLO??? Is anyone being honest?? Soo WHATS WRONG with Picture as well?
3. NEW MEDIA?? NEW INTERNET?? Did you know that the majority of the profits for PRODUCERS come from the Internet?? And My Residual check for ONE F’ing year is $1659 for Internet… WHATS WRONG with that Picture – PRODUCERS MAKE BILLIONS of DOLLARS – BILLIONS!!! WOW!!
SHAME ON YOU AMPTP for distorting the truth!! SHAME on you TOM HANKS for being a MORON by siding with the SHAMEFUL PRODUCERS!!
This movie was embarrassingly bad. Warner Bros should have shelved it permanently to save face. How can a reasonably solid cast come up with such utter trash?