Word: presold
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...year and a half later, Aida--show revamped, title pared down--is just days away from its Broadway opening. And darned if they haven't pulled it off. Unlike Beauty and the Beast, Aida doesn't arrive with a presold children's story and a hit movie to lure the family throngs. Unlike The Lion King, it doesn't break new theatrical ground--not even for the pyramid, whose only remnant is a laser triangle glimpsed briefly in the second act. But on its own terms, Aida is a big, bright, ingeniously staged show that--not going...
Opera fans, too, struggle to get to Glyndebourne, but tickets have always been virtually unobtainable. Much of the small house, 40 miles south of London, is presold to corporate and individual sponsors. For these wealthy people, an evening at Glyndebourne is a social rite, a rare chance to behave like a true English eccentric. Men dress conventionally in black tie. But the women present a fashion show rarely witnessed in the late 20th century: long gowns printed with cabbage roses and exotic shawls that must be relics of Britain's imperial past. For many in the Glyndebourne audience, the evening...
...trade, violent action films. And the studio's failure to reform its free- spending ways has sparked rumors that it may soon be forced into a merger or even bankruptcy. The budget for Carolco's Terminator II is reputed to be an eyeball-gouging $70 million. Since the company presold the lucrative distribution rights, to break even the film will have to be one of the few to gross $200 million. Shooting began in October, not long after Carolco's Hoffman was quoted as saying the viewing public wants "crap." But Carolco is learning that the investing public does...
...more events onto the "our" side of the ledger has reached a frenzied peak. As the networks try to conserve a dwindling share of the TV audience, they are depending more and more on the drawing power of sports. "Sports is the one thing that comes to TV somewhat presold," says Larry Gerbrandt, senior analyst for Paul Kagan Associates. "If you're going to break in a new sitcom, you've got to launch a campaign of awareness. When you add a sports package, people already know what they are getting." The biggest events, moreover, can galvanize the nation around...
This grim fantasy is engendered by exposure, in rapid succession, to the films underlying those last two presold titles and by the prospect of The Karate Kid III, Lethal Weapon II, Nightmare on Elm Street V and, heaven forfend, Friday the 13th VIII. Not to mention James Bond umpty-ump. The basic criticism of sequels is as familiar as it is correct: they represent the triumph of commercial caution over creative daring...