I loved Gone Girl...immediately read the book afterwards. Was getting around two reading Dark Places and Sharp Objects knowing they would be adapted next. Then I finally bought the book to this next week and it says "now a major motion picture starring Charlize Theron." I look it up here and it came out months ago this year!? Wtf! Where was the ads? Did it play in major theatres? I heard absolutely nothing of this...
shareLast week* not next week
shareThis movie was released in a small amount of theaters and Comcast On Demand in August in the U.S., even earlier in some parts of Europe. There were no TV Spots and barely any promotions for this film. I'm also surprised by the extremely obscure releasing of this project. Considering the success of Gone Girl, I would have thought Dark Places would have had a much larger distribution.
shareThey talked on the DVD about having a *very* low budget; maybe that, and the director's being relatively unknown/inexperienced, had something to do with it.
shareExactly!!! I've read all of the books (3 so far) and couldn't wait to see this one. NEVER heard of it being released. That's a damn shame. Nevertheless I shall rent it.
shareI've read that this was only ever supposed to be an indie film - hard to believe considering it has at least 3 household names starring in it, but reading this thread about how low-key the release was and how few cinemas ran it, maybe there is something to it.
The book it's based on predates Gone Girl and supposedly the movie rights were bought and it was in pre-production before Gone Girl started to happen. Unfortunately for this project, by the time it was ready for distribution, the movie adaption of Gone Girl was out, which had a much bigger theatrical release and was made by a more accomplished director.
So instead of just being an independent, dark film based on an even darker novel, the timing of its release meant that the movie now had to suffer in comparison to Gone Girl. It was just really unfortunate timing on the movie's part.
Then, just for good measure, Gillian Flynn's earlier novel, Sharp Objects, was later made in to a star studded, heavily promoted and highly acclaimed TV series.
So even though it was the first of Flynn's stories to be translated to film and, to reiterate, was just supposed to be a niche alternative movie, it now just looks like the poor relation to Flynn's other 2 screen adaptions.
Ironically, it's about the same luck as the Day family having to killers visit in the same night.