After playing for 43 weeks in Grand Rapids, “Uncle Nino,” the heartwarming Robert Shallcross-David James independent family feature, has signed a deal with a Chicago-based distributor to bring it to movie theatres around the country.
The film, starring Joe Mantegna and Anne Archer, as suburban parents, and veteran character actor Pierrino Mascarino as the eccentric uncle who visits from Italy, has been acquired by Lange Film Releasing, which will release it Feb. 11 on 300 screens in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, plus Atlanta, Boston, Milwaukee, Providence and throughout Florida.
John Lange, who handled theatrical sales covering half the U.S. for “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” said he sees a similar appeal in “Uncle Nino.” “Based on how we do the first two weeks, we’ll move into another ten markets,” he said.
“It’s hard to compare anything to ?Greek Wedding’ ? that film was truly an anomaly and 9/11 has to be factored into its success, everybody was looking for a family film.
“But ?Uncle Nino’ has the ?Greek Wedding’ element that everybody can relate to it. It’s a very sweet film that appeals to people of all ages. It’s alternative programming as opposed to what’s out in the marketplace. I truly believe we need to have more films like this,” Lange said.
Shallcross and James produced the family comedy in 2002, drawing on their considerable earlier experience as commercial producers, to infuse the $1 million feature with higher production values found in movies costing many times that amount.
Lange handpicked the opening locations based on their sizable Italian-American populations and the success of ?Greek Wedding’ there. He’s combining a traditional advertising campaign with grassroots marketing through Italian-American groups, a possible tie-in with the Olive Garden restaurant chain, and outreach through some of the same Christian channels that contributed to the success of “The Passion of the Christ.”
“This is not a Christian film, but it has the family values that will appeal to that community,” Lange said.
Mantegna and Archer play an Italian-American couple in a troubled marriage, who find their family disrupted but finally brought closer together by the arrival of an uncle, Mascarino, from the old country.
It was shot on locations in Arlington Heights, Glenview, Northfield, Westmont and O’Hare.
Robert Shalcross wrote and directed. David James produced this second film from their Kick the Can Productions, after 2000’s family comedy “Bored Silly.”
“Uncle Nino” won the audience prize at the Marco Island Film Film Festival and the Crystal Heart Award at Indianapolis’ Heartland Film Festival, and screened at the 2003 IFP Conference in Chicago. The film has been playing continuously in a test run since Dec. 5 in Grand Rapids.
Lange is distributing for an upfront fee and a percentage on the entire project. He’s personally handling North American theatrical and will outsource video and ancillary rights.
Lange sold all theatrical for “the middle half of the country” on “Greek Wedding,” for IFC Films and Golden Circle.
Lange has handled theatrical for all Newmarket releases, beginning with “Memento” and including “The Passion of the Christ,” “Whale Rider,” “Monster,” and “Y tu mam? tambi?n?” He sold the highly successful independent 2002 Purple Rose release “Escanaba in da Moonlight,” and last year’s dismal “Supersucker.”
Lange took over the 25-year-old Lange Releasing from his father after graduating from Columbia College. His first release was “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2” in 1985. Lange’s brother Dan joined Lange Releasing after he left his position as a Disney exec when the studio closed its Chicago office earlier this year.
Reach him at langefilm@aol.com.
– by Ed M. Koziarski, edk@homesickblues.com
Read the background of “Uncle Nino,” reprinted from a ReelChicago exclusive November, 2003.
