'Sideways' Returns, Uncorked For Japan(2)
When the producers of the new "Sideways" set out to shoot at California wineries, the response was less than enthusiastic. Though the original sparked a surge in pinot noir sales and wine tourism, it also led to a drop in merlot sales. As Terry Joanis, marketing manager of the Frog's Leap winery, explained: "Not everybody grows pinot noir. A lot of people grow merlot."
But after a campaign explaining the filmmakers' varietal agnosticism, Frog's Leap, Beringer and Chandon were among the wineries that signed on, along with restaurants and tourist spots in the area. In the resulting scenes each location gets a plug that approaches parody. There are signs visible in nearly every scene, close-ups of wine labels and real-life employees, in bit parts, stiffly reciting lines like "Welcome to Old Faithful Geyser, Calistoga, California."
Mr. Gluck defends the plugs as "payback, in a good way." He explained, "When you're a small film, that's sometimes all you have to offer." (The Japanese film was made for $3 million; the original cost $17 million.) "We didn't set out to make a tourism film," he said. But he added, "If there's going to be a benefit, let it be for those who helped us out."
Executives at Fox International Productions were surprised when their counterparts at Fuji TV, one of Japan's biggest television and film producers, proposed the remake nearly a year ago. "We thought, 'Wow, that movie?"' said Sanford Panitch, president of Fox International. But he knew enough to recognize what he didn't know. "If we're making films for the Japanese market, we have to make them the way the Japanese make them," he said.
Toru Miyazawa, deputy director of sales and acquisitions for Fuji TV, said the modest size of the original (and the fact that it did little business in Japan) lent it to being redone. "Obviously it doesn't make sense to remake 'Titanic' or 'Star Wars,' anything too big," he said, explaining that he had been drawn to "Sideways" because "it's a good comedy, but not a broad stupid comedy." The international travels (and the cultural dislocations) of the main characters, he added, would be interesting to people in their late 30s and early 40s, the movie's main audience
