Monday

In Theaters September 20th, "The Short Game" Has Come a Long Way

Getting a movie made... and bringing it to theaters... is a notoriously difficult undertaking, even when a project has all the traditional elements of a blockbuster. But what about when your movie is a documentary... without any known stars... that takes place entirely within the rarefied word of junior golf? 

I wrote about "The Short Game" in early March when it was about to premiere in the feature documentary category at SXSW.

Like lots of golf fans I fell in love with the film... and its precocious cast... the first time I viewed the trailer,  but I worried a distribution deal might not materialize in a landscape where a risk-averse distribution system seems to shy away from movies without extravagant special effects and A-list stars.

Well, I needn't have worried, "The Short Game" ultimately won the SXSW Audience Award, other awards followed during the Spring and Summer, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel signed on as executive producers and in early August a distribution deal was secured. 

 The film will hit theaters on September 20th.

4 comments:

  1. I've noticed quite a few golf movies on the crowd-funding sites trying to get the $$$ needed for distribution. Some of them even have known actors. But, as you say, it's definitely a tough sell in the current environment. I hope The Short Game fines an audience that goes beyond golfers and golf fans, and allows it to be more widely distributed. It sure looks like an excellent film.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm so glad this film got distribution! Can't wait to see it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If the trailer is any indication this movie should be fantastic. I hope it comes to OH.

    ReplyDelete
  4. the bar was set with CADDY SHACK and since then not many GOLF themes have been filmed and even fewer commercially successful - timberlake happens to play GOLF well so this may turn out to be a personal association - looking forward to the movie however one can see this same experience manifest itself at any future US women's amateur OPEN, which i myself took in back some years now when it was contested at SLEEPY HOLLOW - sleepy young kids tumbling out of hotel vans some sans shoes and sox and world-traveled young ladies well put together ALL knocking it around like PROs, it was very very fun to watch natural talent BEFORE it gets corrupted by commercialism

    off-topic BTW a recent movie THE BIG WEDDING, with de niro and annie hall and sarandon, was shot in your neighborhood, PATRICIA, somewhere in greenwich CT in a lake house

    ReplyDelete

Lets us know what you think...