So having given hype a pretty good hammering, is it the case that no expectations at all are the way to go? It’s certainly true that we don’t have to look very far for examples of films where the relative absence of publicity surrounding their release actually seems to have worked in their favour. Little Miss Sunshine is an example of one such slow burner. Premiering on the indie scene at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, it was picked up from there by Fox Searchlight Pictures but initially still only given a limited theatrical release. Eight months later it won two of its four Academy Award nominations and was amassing more awards by the ceremony. Of course, word had spread that this little known film with the pretty well known cast was good, but very little about the film itself ever went truly mainstream. Basically, audiences were left to experience the rare delight of surprise.
A similar thing happened in 2009 when District 9 suddenly appeared on the scene, with nothing really other than producer Peter Jackson’s say-so and a cleverly ambiguous poster campaign to vouch for it. It too went on to sidle its wonderfully weird way into the Oscar nominations that year. This was even more of a surprise than Little Miss Sunshine; thoughtful and sensitive films with a gentle comedy edge are familiar to Oscar nominations – alien-filled, documentary-styled, South African science fiction films are not.
Interestingly, District 9 and its director Neill Blomkamp’s second film, Elysium provide a neat comparison for looking at what can happen to two films that are similarly handled, similarly written and even similarly cast (with the exception of adding Matt Damon to Elysium), but are presented in two different ways – one with the expectations and one without. District 9 came out of nowhere, made an instant star out of the highly talented Sharlto Copley and blew open the doors for Blomkamp’s future in directing. Elysium arrived via the more conventional route of mainstream speculation and the sort of long-range anticipation that District 9 had (largely) done without. And as good as Elysium was, it was no District 9. The reason for this is simple. Elysium conformed to classic sci-fi parameters – it did exactly what it said on the tin. With District 9 on the other hand, there was no tin. Sometimes there really is just nothing quite like not knowing what to expect.