‘Woman’ rises on more than faith

In August, from across the country to Georgia’s capital they came, some 60,000 hairstylists and fashion enthusiasts, to attend the Bronner Brothers Atlanta Hair Show. Touted as the world’s largest event of its kind, the semiannual convention showcased the latest African American hair-care products such as moisturizing foam, wrapping lotion and scalp conditioning creams, and services like lock grooming and two-strand comb twists. Most attendees, however, probably didn’t think that the entrance fee would entitle them to a preview of a new indie movie.

Yet there among the beauty product displays strolled promoters for “Woman Thou Art Loosed,” a gritty drama about a woman’s struggle to come to terms with her legacy of abuse, poverty and addiction. They handed out fliers for midnight screenings, eventually attracting audiences of 500 people on consecutive evenings.

“We went after beauticians and the hair-care-product people because I understand the African American community,” said Bishop T.D. Jakes, who stars in the film and wrote the self-help book on which it is based. “I understand that everybody gets their hair done. And the barbershop and the beauty shop are hubs of conversation -- pulse points in our community.”

Unlikely as it sounds, cultivating positive word of mouth among hair-care tastemakers was just one component of a sophisticated, multi-pronged approach to sell “Woman Thou Art Loosed” outside Hollywood’s traditional promotional realm. Even for a movie that was shot for less than $2 million with no bankable stars, and has heavy religious overtones dealing with the psychological scars of child molestation, it isn’t an obvious marketing solution. But the initiative -- which has also involved outreach to a nationwide faith-based community, African American elected officials, academics and R&B; radio programmers -- seems to be working.

During its Oct. 1-3 opening weekend, the film grossed $2.35 million at the box office despite its release in just 408 theaters. It grabbed seventh place, beating bigger films with massive advertising budgets including “First Daughter,” and catching movie industry observers off guard.

“Everyone was kind of flabbergasted,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co. “It was one of those out-of-nowhere scenarios like, ‘Where did this movie come from? And how did it wind up in the top 10 on a weekend where we had “Shark Tale” opening?’ ”

In its second weekend, “Woman” took in about $1.1 million as Magnolia Pictures boosted its theater count to 432 amid stiff competition from the returning “Shark Tale” and new arrival “Friday Night Lights.” Queen Latifah’s “Taxi” may have also cut into the audience for “Woman,” whose 10-day tally is about $4.1 million, according to estimates released Sunday.

Initial interest surrounding “Woman Thou Art Loosed” has focused on Jakes, a televangelist and Grammy-winning gospel singer who appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 2001 with a headline that asked, “Is This Man the Next Billy Graham?” Undeniably, Jakes’ ministry -- and its formidable marketing clout -- has galvanized many religious leaders and church communities to turn out for the film following a business template set by the blockbuster epic “The Passion of the Christ.” But those involved with “Woman” insist its success bespeaks a groundswell that goes beyond the faith-based community.

Even though the film’s executive producer, Ruben Cannon, had hoped for a slightly stronger hold, the film’s box office indicates that a broader audience than “only black church folks went to see the movie.”

The path to the screen

Any discussion of the film’s marketing must begin with its unusual journey to the screen. In 1992, the bishop began teaching a Sunday school seminar for sexually abused women, calling it “Woman Thou Art Loosed” after a chapter in the Gospel of St. Luke in which Jesus commands a distraught woman to release her emotional burdens. The seminar begat a self-help book that sold 2 million copies and in turn was made into a successful gospel play.

In 2001, Cannon, an established casting director and independent movie producer, began maneuvering to turn the play, which had toured the country for two years, into a straight-to-DVD film -- until market research suggested a different approach. “I attended the 11th Annual Woman Thou Art Loosed conference in Houston,” he recalled. “There were 80,000 woman attendees each night for three days in a row. And I knew then we had something bigger.”

A death row inmate’s emotional journey of self-discovery and forgiveness -- with a spiritual boost from an adviser named “Bishop T.D. Jakes” -- “Woman” gained the backing of private investors including Johnnie Cochran, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. Kimberly Elise (“The Manchurian Candidate”) signed on for the lead role, and Jakes agreed to play himself. Director Michael Schultz (“Car Wash,” “Cooley High”), moonlighting from TV’s “Everwood,” shot the movie in South-Central Los Angeles over 12 frenetic days.

“Woman” premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February and was acquired by Magnolia, a distributor better known for releasing documentaries including “Capturing the Friedmans” and “Control Room.” Marketers knew that job one would be to create an awareness within the community that had first embraced Jakes and his ministry.

“The African American church community supported ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ ” Cannon said, “which, if you look, had $50 million in group sales before the movie opened.”

“Bishop Jakes has a huge network of sympathetic ministers who will listen to him when he says something,” said Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia.

“We had a mini-tour with Bishop Jakes where he was promoting a book and promoting the movie,” Bowles said. “And we would screen the movie when he was visiting individual pastors in towns like Washington [D.C.], Baltimore, New York and Detroit. He’d basically show the film, talk about it and enlist the ministers’ help in promoting it.”

According to Magnolia’s figures, about $150,000 worth of tickets had been sold to church groups before the movie’s Oct. 1 opening. But contrary to many reports, “we knew it couldn’t be just preachers and choirs,” said Cannon. “We had to go beyond the faith-based audience and appeal to a second audience.”

Toward that end, Jakes’ for-profit business venture, Touchdown Concepts, has extensive experience with below-the-radar but effective street-level marketing for religious and secular businesses. “Because our African American community is a close-knit community, there’s nothing that goes on on one side that doesn’t clap its hand against the other,” Jakes said. “So you advertise on R&B; stations, secular stations, you put out fliers on barbershops and beauty shops and do street team marketing where people put fliers on cars and windows. It’s a strong grass-roots initiative that’s philosophically similar to how we promote gospel plays.”

Equally important in creating initial buzz was advance-screening “Woman” for the right people: congressional Black Caucus members, the American Assn. of Christian Counselors, advocacy groups for women’s shelters, religious-news writers and radio station talk show hosts. “We needed their support for followup,” Jakes said. It also helped that on the day of the movie’s release, Winfrey’s talk show aired a segment called “I Shot My Molester” that endorsed the film.

Among more conventional promotions, 5,000 DVDs containing trailers for “Woman” and testimonials from people who had seen it were sent to a ministers’ convention in Dallas. A computer program was used to invite people to see the film in designated area codes nationwide. And Cannon conducted what he calls an “e-blast” -- “an e-mail to hundreds of people in my address book ... saying, ‘Please support this film. It’s important,’ ” he said. “Since then, it’s bounced all over the world -- you’ve got your hundreds of e-mail addresses and then another person’s hundreds of e-mail addresses and another person’s thousand.... I was really surprised at how effective it was.”

But none of the promotions have significantly driven up marketing costs, said Bowles.

On Oct. 22, the movie will expand to another 200 theaters in additional markets across the country in the hope that it will appeal to moviegoers whose interests lie outside the Hollywood mainstream. “It’s not the typical audience that’s tracked by the movie industry,” Dergarabedian pointed out.

“It’s an underserved genre and an underserved market,” Cannon said. “When you look at the success of gospel plays -- and you see a demographic of black women that you wouldn’t ordinarily see at your Friday night cinema -- you know there’s an audience that craves entertainment. It’s a new genre. One that Hollywood is not in touch with.”