Pathe launches Evelyn and L’Homme du train

21/03/2003

Pathe Distribution UK is supervising today the wide-release (298 screens) of Irish film Evelyn with Pierce Brosnan and the typically smaller release (18 prints) of the French subtitled film L’homme du train [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Patrice Leconte.
Bruce Beresford’s Evelyn premiered in London on St Patrick’s Day (Monday 17 March) at the Odeon Leicester Square with Brosnan, some of the cast and Beau St Clair, Brosnan’s business/production partner in their co-owned Irish Dreamtime company.
The Irish premiere took place last Wednesday (19 March).
Evelyn is the true story of a father of three who takes on the Church and court system in 1950s Ireland- and wins, and is the fourth film produced by Irish Dreamtime after The Nephew, The Match and the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. With Brosnan/James Bond’s star pulling power, the film was positioned as an upmarket art-house film with strong box official potential especially in Ireland, where it benefited from a heavy TV advertising, radio, outdoor and press campaign.
Although aiming at a similar upmarket educated audience, L’homme du train is being released in onto 18 cinemas across the UK and Ireland. “The problem here is that we’re always limited with subtitled prints,” explains Pathe’s head of marketing, Alistair Nicholson. “The film will probably do well with the targeted London audience who enjoy subtitled films, but a wider British audience is still very much resilient to subtitled prints.”
The French-UK co-production stars Jean Rochefort and French pop idol Johnny Halliday and won the Audience Award at the last Venice Film Festival. L’homme du train had is UK premiere during the London Film Festival last November.