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'Tiger' roars at the top
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March 20, 2001: 9:06 a.m. ET
Sony Classics masters Artisan's 'Witch' craft in its Mandarin-language film
By Staff Writer Joseph Lee
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," a Taiwanese film that mixes martial arts and romance, is up for 10 Oscars on March 25, including Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director. But many wonder how the subtitled film clawed its way into Hollywood's heart.
The Mandarin-language film made history by surpassing Roberto Benigni's Oscar-winning Holocaust tale "Life is Beautiful" as the highest-grossing foreign-language film ever released in North America.
 The movie, directed by Ang Lee, has grossed more than $100 million, and Sony Pictures Classics, the U.S. distributor of "Crouching Tiger," has predicted the film to pass the $110 million-mark by April.
"It's a romantic movie that has action in it, so it has a range of values and pacing," said Jason Squire, film business professor at University of Southern California. "It's beautifully shot, and somehow through word-of-mouth, it became a phenomenon."
But for "Crouching Tiger," and other low-budget nominees such as "Billy Elliot" and "You Can Count On Me," the path to Oscar night isn't easy. Their success comes in part from a good script and cast, and in part from perfecting a method used by Artisan's "The Blair Witch Project" and a string of successes from Miramax Films.
Overcoming the language barrier
Lee is no stranger to the film industry.
His critically acclaimed "Sense and Sensibility" received seven nominations in 1995 and won actress Emma Thompson an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. But the Taiwanese-born director was shut out by the Oscar committee. "Crouching Tiger," went a step further, critics said.
 "'Crouching Tiger' is a very good movie," said Dick Morris, an independent film buyer in California. "It's well made and extremely well-marketed. We've seen this before, but not at this level."
The fight scenes especially have been some of the most talked-about elements in the movie, and "Crouching Tiger" brought critics to their feet at last year's Cannes International Film Festival.
"The hype behind this film coming out of Cannes was international in nature," said Morris. "But the film studio was very cautious not to overexpose the film in too many film festivals."
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Sony executives worried about whether people in the United States would respond to a non-English film. Subtitled movies typically don't do as well at the box office because of a perception that they are "art house fare."
Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Classics, said the company had to think up a new approach to overcome the barrier.
"We had to plan ahead," said Bernard. "Because it was very difficult to get over the myth of the subtitles."
Sony turns Artisan for marketing witch craft
Sony Classics turned to another small budget film, "The Blair Witch Project," which used the Internet to overcome a $30,000 budget, first-time filmmakers and a cast of unknown actors.
Months before the release of "Blair Witch," Artisan Entertainment, distributor of the film, launched a Web marketing campaign -- building a fake documentary, or mockumentary, about three college students who disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Md., while shooting a documentary.
 The site created a cult following for the film and a strong demand for a wider release.
"The Blair Witch Project" blew Hollywood's mega-budget releases out of the water in ticket sales when it hit the theaters in the summer of 1998.
The project outfoxed the major film studios that year, grossing over $140 million, and many studio executives turned to "Blair Witch" for marketing 101.
Sony thought Artisan's savvy Internet campaign could be a solution for its subtitle concerns, particularly in marketing the film to a younger audience, Bernard said.
"The teen audience communicates and speaks in written words now," said Bernard. "They are on (the computer) all the time, and that's how they talk to their friends. They communicate in subtitles."
After receiving positive reviews at Cannes, Sony started promoting "Crouching Tiger" among teens by sending over 400 trailers to Web sites that cater to young people.
"Sixty percent of the audience for this film so far was teenagers and kids, " said Bernard. "And I think a lot of kids drove their parents to the film in the mainstream."
Sony Classics, the next Miramax?
This is the third time in the 73-year Oscar history that a film has been nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film, and it is the first time that a subtitled release won double-digit Oscar nominations.
Meanwhile, "Crouching Tiger" has received a huge marketing push from Sony.
Sony (SNE: Research, Estimates) continued a trend started by Miramax Films, an independent film division of Disney, of spending more on marketing than production to deliver good results at the box office.
"Crouching Tiger" cost $11 million to make, and the studio has already spent $15 million in marketing.
Bernard said when Sony had to spend money on television advertising, they concentrated on cable TV. "It's a much more direct marketing campaign," he said.
 Miramax had entered the 1998 Oscar race with an aggressive campaign, dumping millions of dollars into promotions for their candidates -- "Shakespeare in Love" and "Life Is Beautiful."
The results: on the night of the Oscars that year, "Shakespeare" took home seven awards, including Best Picture, and "Life" won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director.
Miramax did it again in the following year with "The Cider House Rules," a film that received little notice until the Oscar nominations.
Morris said Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of Miramax, has always been criticized for his aggressive, big spending Oscar tactics. "They changed the percentage of money allocated to marketing, and they changed the rules of the game," he said.
But Morris also pointed out that a studio cannot successfully market a movie that has no substance, and he praised the quality of "Crouching Tiger."
Lee rides the wave of Oscar buzz
As for Lee's next project, the Taiwanese director is working on the special-effects-drenched "The Incredible Hulk." Also on his project board, Lee may hum a far different tune in a contemporary musical called "Same Old Song."
"He only has so much time to make movies," said Bernard. "I think he wants to make a movie in every genre."
Following the enormous success of "Crouching Tiger," many wonder if Lee and Sony Classics are working on a prequel.
"There may be a prequel someday," said Bernard. "But it's not happening anytime in the near future." 
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