It’s not too uncommon for multiple movies to be floating around with the same name before someone blinks or decides to be nice to those setting up their queues on Netflix. It probably gets more attention in the world of the studio movies then it does in that of indies, but every once in a while, two movies crop up at the same time with the same name and start playing the Name Game. (For instance, who would have thought that there might be two movies called “Chef”?)
Arie Posin finally got around to making his follow-up to The Chumscrubber last year with a movie called Look of Love, which stars Annette Bening, Robin Williams and Ed Harris,but nothing much seemed to be happening with it.
Then back in January, the latest reunion of Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan showed up at the Sundance Film Festival, a movie about club owner and porn publisher Paul Raymond, who was known by everyone as the “King of Soho.” That was intended to be the name of the movie as well but maybe someone else had something planned for that title so they switched it to… you guessed it… The Look of Love.
IFC Films quickly scooped that movie up, having released a number of Winterbottom’s previous films, but there was still a question about that other movie called “Look of Love” starring Annette Benning that was still out there.
IFC Films has squared the whole situation away by picking up the distribution rights to that movie as well, retitling it The Face of Love with plans to release it in September 2013.
Who knows? Maybe the Winterbottom movie will be released around the same time so that New Yorkers who go to the IFC Center will see both names on the marquee and still be confused about which movie to see.
