The Founder Review

In the past year:

-Jane Got a Gun and Regression, both August hopefuls, finally earned releases back-to-back in late January to early February 2016. Regression being a greater critical bomb than Jane, it still managed to stick with its international releases, making the US the third last country to see it in cinemas.

-Underdogs, retitled from Foosball to hopefully increase profits amongst a domestic audience, found its fate on Netflix after ridiculously subsequent delays from August 2014 to 2015, found a home on Netflix after three years, morphing from a South American breakthrough to this generation's Theodore Rex. Previous mangles to family films by the Weinsteins included adding extra dialogue to an already-watered-down cut of The Thief and the Cobbler and giving it fate as the free gift in a cereal box, Americanising and Shrek-ifying the Magic Roundabout reboot they chose to call Doogal, and in hopes of more money adding a Gwen Stefani/Pharrell Williams collaboration to the soundtrack of the otherwise-British Paddington.

-The Founder, a TV-quality biopic clearly not directed with Academy Awards in mind, was delayed to a limited December release in competition with the wide releases of La La Land and Fences shortly before its initial August 5th release followed by a wide Inaguration Day release a month later just to qualify for the season thanks to Harvey's craving for Oscar power, none of which worked save for three Annual Movies for Grownups Awards nominations. The same strategy was attempted by equally delay-crazy Warner Bros. with In the Heart of the Sea, which worked out poor enough; The Founder scored much better reviews but its awards reputation was even colder.

-Justin Chadwick's Tulip Fever was delayed at the last week from July 2016 to Febuary 2017 in order to give the film more time to get completed. This happened again when the film couldn't find so much as a Berlinale premiere and the film is currently seeking a more awards-friendly date, therefore making the same mistake as The Founder but potentially worse.

-Controversial transgender drama About Ray has been re-edited, rescored and reverted back to its working title Three Generations, set for May 19th after being held in limbo since the week before the Weinsteins would release it, which is also the week it premiered at TIFF in 2015 to a lukewarm critical response.

-French/Canadian family toon Ballerina was renamed the apparently more marketable Leap!, but the Weinsteins knew so little of how to publicise it beyond a trailer that they delayed it from March 3rd to April 21st. Like Underdogs, titled The Unbeatables in the UK, this had been released in other English-speaking territories the year before with no delays necessary.

-A subsidiary of FilmNation, the international sales financiers of The Founder and Gold, sued the Weinsteins with a $15,000,000 fine for delaying their films to a competitive wide release against their wishes, two consecutive January weekends in which they both flopped while the latter scored much worse reception than the former. These two being similar stories, the releases being so close to each other sounded like a matter of public choice.

And that is why you should never make a deal with The Weinstein Company. You've got a lame movie? They're bound to submit insult to injury.