Last summer I was confidently declaring that the wonderful British movie Made in Dagenham (2010, Paramount, 15) would become "this year's Full Monty": a solid drama which coated its serious subject matter (equal pay for women) in enough feelgood froth to appeal to mainstream multiplex audiences on both sides of the Atlantic while also garnering multiple statuettes.
Virtually abandoning their actors in the forest, they achieved an unprecedented level of snot-dribbling realism, which creeped out multiplex audiences to a staggering $140m£87m7m).
(The Carter clip is from the so-called "malaise" speech; to my chagrin, a few older members of the multiplex audience laughed derisively).
"It'll never play to a general multiplex audience," says Abell, "but I think an arthouse audience will come because of strong reviews such as Peter Bradshaw's [following its screening at the London film festival] that put the sex and nudity in context".
"On the Road" is particularly daunting since the provocative ideas that defined the novel — casual sex and drug use and a rejection of materialism — are unlikely to raise eyebrows with today's multiplex audience.
He knows the multiplex audience, because he is the multiplex audience.
Unlike the directors of the Seventies and Eighties, such as Fassbinder, Wenders and Volker Schlöndorff, today's German directors make films for a multiplex audience rather than for the art-house.
LAFF has never shied away from showcasing mainstream Hollywood fare intended for the widest possible multiplex audience.
Multiplex audiences are still laughing along to the dude-ish dadaism of 22 Jump Street, while The Lego Movie (Warner, U), which hits DVD shelves tomorrow, is 2014's highest grosser so far.
The last time multiplex audiences saw Diesel's escaped convict character in "The Chronicles of Riddick," however, things didn't turn out as planned.
