Production/Distribution for One Hour Photo

Now that we have completed recording ad editing our two minute film opening we then began to look at how the films that had inspired our film opening and genre and how to distribute/produce them. The first film we looked at was One Hour photo.

One Hour Photo is a 2002 American psychological thriller which was written and directed by Mark Romanek, and starred Robin Williams. The film also starred Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Gary Cole, and Eriq La Salle.

The film was then distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures in the United States. One Hour Photo opened to generally positive reviews, earning raves from Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin, and other noted critics. Ebert called the film "profoundly creepy". The film had a limited release which began on 21st August 2002 and it only opened in seven theatres. The film's opening to a $321,515 weekend, with an average of $45,930 per theatre. Its wide release began on September 13th, with a 1,212 theater count. Still, the film made just over $8 million that weekend, and went on to gross $31,597,131 in the US, with an additional $20,626,175 in overseas territories, for an international total of $52,223,306; this was a moderate box office success, as the budget was around $12 million.

Romanek intended the film to be much longer, but the studio ordered it to be cut shorter, and elements rearranged out of concerns about commerciality. The beginning, for example, was moved to the end. Also, several of Sy's narrative monologues were removed, and several scenes were re-shot with fewer lines. The original version also has older musical scores that were not used in the final product.