Madonna, Burns Turn to Alternative Distribution

You know something's wrong in Hollywood when movies with stars can't get a theater opening. Edward Burns took his latest relationship pic Purple Violets exclusively to iTunes, and Madonna is threatening to do something similar with her badly reviewed Berlin flick Filth & Wisdom. That would be an interesting test of the power of the Internet, if Madonna used her marketing machine to sell her film online.

This weekend, Ebert & Roeper critics Tony Scott and Richard Roeper did a segment about movies with marquee names that have gone direct to DVD. Scott recommended the Michele Pfeiffer/Paul Rudd romance I Could Never Be Your Woman, while Roeper thought Jennifer Lopez was strong in Gregory Nava's The Border. And here's a review of a 2001 unreleased Alan Rudolph movie finally hitting video stores.

Nowadays a minimal theatrical release is just a short-cut to the video store. With the current indie-finance glut, there are more movies seeking alternative distribution than ever, judging by how few got picked up at Sundance. Here's my column on alternative distribution on the Internet.

Many small-scale success stories are out there, as filmmakers and online distributors such as B-Side, IFC, Withoutabox, Cinequest, iTunes, Amazon and Netflix experiment with economic models. It's only a matter of time before we have more breakouts to show the way. Check out the online break-through flicks Head Trauma, Blood Car and Four Eyed Monsters (pictured) as well as the hockey doc In the Crease.