Martin Scorsese’s new film The Irishman has been ruffling feathers throughout the film industry.  Most notably for its unusual release pattern.

The film was funded by streaming giant Netflix, meaning that it was available on SVOD just 19 days after it first hit cinema screens.

This is a highly unusual ‘collapsing of the theatrical window’.  A film of this size and scope would be expected to have at least four months between first appearing on the big screen and then going into consumer homes (it’s three months in North America).

This has led the Big Three cinema chains in the UK, Vue, Odeon and Cineworld (which also owns Picturehouse), refusing to screen the film.  The Irishman opened on 8th November on the screens …

Last year, I used a variety of data-led indicators to assess the claim that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

If you don’t want any spoilers as to the result, stop reading this now and head on over to that article.

I used three categories of indicators through which a movie’s “Christmasness” could be judged – artistic, commercial and cultural. The first considers what’s in the movie, the second how it’s sold and the third how it’s perceived.

As time moves on, it’s the final of those three which becomes most crucial.  The artistic nature of the film remains static (well, unless George Lucas gets to it) and the commercial lens is not very reliable, given movie marketers’ penchant for pushing literally anything …