By BRIAN RUDMAN
The grand old Civic Theatre in Auckland was supposed to be alive to Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music next month. That is, until 20th Century Fox suddenly pulled out of a deal to provide the film.
It has also banned any further showings of the movie in New Zealand until further notice.
The von Trapp family's no-show has resulted in an angry Edge management abandoning its second season of Movies at the Civic, which was to run most of September.
"Of the 48 screenings scheduled, we were relying on The Sound of Music, with its 14 screenings, to provide just over 40 per cent of the revenue," says Richard Jeffery, director of theatre and convention services.
Without it, he says the season was not financially viable. Other films to have featured included The Wizard of Oz, The Maltese Falcon and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Projecting a video of the film, or importing a print from overseas, were contemplated but abandoned in the interests of long-term relations, he says.
The film's distributor in New Zealand, Royce Moodabe, would not comment yesterday but The Edge has been told he was acting on instructions from 20th Century Fox head office in Los Angeles.
Kerry Robins, manager of the Embassy in Wellington and programme director of the Civic season, says he understands the film has been pulled worldwide.
The Embassy had a very successful season of the film in June, where four "party" performances were shown to cheering audiences.
It appears that the present cult status of the film, as demonstrated in Wellington, is the reason Auckland audiences are now to miss out.
Word in the industry is that the estates of the film's authors, Rodgers and Hammerstein, want to renegotiate their deal with the distributors in light of the movie's second wind.
(Second wind is possibly the wrong expression for the perennially popular show that in its 35 years has earned $980 million and become, after Gone With the Wind and Star Wars, the highest-grossing film ever.)
The rebirth of the movie was sparked a year ago when London's Prince Charles Cinema adapted the successful formula of the Rocky Horror Picture Show happenings and launched a season of singalong Sound of Music, complete with subtitles and a bouncing ball.
It was an instant success, with audiences turning up as everything from giant parcels - "brown paper packages tied up with strings" - to nuns, Nazis and alpine virgins. Not forgetting, of course, the "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" - both male and female.
The special print of the film is presently on a British national tour with bookings until December. It has also popped up in the United States and at Sydney's gay mardi gras last autumn.
The Wellington performances used the well-worn standard print that has served New Zealand for years, but that did not deter audiences from dressing up and singing along with gay abandon.
"They were so charged up, the opening scene was like the old matinee when you stomped your feet as the cavalry approached," laughs Mr Robins.
Mr Jeffery was hoping for the same at the Civic. His only consolation, he says, is that the distributors have assured the Civic it will have the first release of a digitised version planned once negotiations with the estates are completed.
It is ironic that the film is again centrestage in the Civic's life.
It was only late in the theatre's rebuilding that money was found for a screen and adequate sound and projection facilities. Its future was said to be in big blockbuster shows. Of those there has been little sight.
It's the movies that have brought in the audiences - over 100,000 people so far.
With the New Zealand dollar in freefall, Mr Jeffery says attracting overseas shows will become even harder.
As fate would have it, the only one on the horizon is an Australian version of The Sound of Music now touring across the Tasman.
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