Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Okay, Could Someone Please Explain This To Me?

Twelve days ago, The Hills Have Eyes 2, the sequel to last year's remake of Wes Craven's original The Hills Have Eyes, opened in theaters nationwide to mostly one-star reviews and less than stellar box office. Despite the urging of my buddy Bob Skir, I opted not to go with him to see the film at the local megaplex, saying I would rather wait until it hit cable, then watch it there.

Well, it appears I made a wise choice indeed since, according to my Tivo, The Hills Have Eyes 2 premieres on Showtime Beyond tomorrow night at 10.

Now, to the best of my knowledge, usually the way things go with a film is that it's first released to theaters, then three to six months later, it's released on DVD, and another six months to a year after that, it hits cable. If my Tivo is right, this may be hitting some new kind of record, since the film is also still playing in theaters.

And, before any of you go writing in to tell me that what's airing is actually only the sequel to the original The Hills Have Eyes, let me assure you that I already checked. The original sequel, called The Hills Have Eyes Part II (note the slightly different title), was made in 1985 and involved the atomic cannibals going after a busload of school children. It is also currently playing on cable.

No, according to my Tivo, the film I've marked it to record tomorrow night was made in 2007 and is described as "Vicious mutants attack National Guardsmen in the desert," which is exactly the plot of the new film.

So, my question is this: just how bad does a movie have to be for it to go straight to cable while it's still in the theaters?

I'm just asking, is all.

6 comments:

Tim Leong said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike Everleth said...

As somebody who used to work in the TV listings biz (for 9 years!), my first assumption was that whoever TiVO gets it's listings from screwed up big time.

But then, the Showtime website's listings say that they are indeed showing the 2007 HHE2. However, their description of the film is actually of the original 1985 sequel. The original sequel has some survivors returning (as Showtime writes), while the 2007 film is all brand new victims (as far as I know from reading descriptions).

So, I think somebody in Showtime Beyond's listings dept. messed up and TiVo's listings service didn't catch it.

But, please, please TiVo it and post which version of the film it really is. I'm curious to find out.

P.S. The film's official sites don't mention it being on cable and all say it's still in theaters.

Anonymous said...

Bob called me with this same observation the other night, and we checked the listings on my cable-company-supplied DVR against his TiVo schedule. My listing shows it's the 80s sequel, on the same time and channel as Bob's TiVo listing, which stubbornly maintains it's the new one.

I think it's a mistake.

Anonymous said...

Whoops, forgot to put my name on that last comment.

Len Wein said...

And yet my Fauxvo DVR listings insist it's the new one. Guess we'll know the truth Friday morning.

Anonymous said...

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Don