Inchon (film) - Release

Release

The world premiere of the film was held in Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1981 at a special screening at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as a benefit for retired United States Navy personnel. This was the only time the film was screened in its 140-minute full version. Between 25 and 100 protesters came to demonstrate outside the John F. Kennedy Center event.

United States Senator Alfonse D'Amato was the chairman of the benefit committee for Washington, D.C. premiere of the film. Twelve members of the United States Congress had agreed to have their names used as honorary members of the benefit committee for the film's Washington, D.C. premiere. An additional forty-eight members of the U.S. Congress accepted tickets to the film's premiere. Lawrence H. Suid wrote in Guts & Glory that "... no more than fifteen or sixteen were willing to brave the pickets outside the Kennedy Center protesting the Unification Church and its involvement with the movie."

On February 13, 1982, President Ronald Reagan, himself a former film actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, screened the film in the White House. He noted in his diary: "Ran Inchon -- it is a brutal but gripping picture about the Korean War and for once we're the good guys and the Communists are the villains. The producer was Japanese or Korean which probably explains the preceding sentence."

Inchon was shown at the 35th Cannes film festival in May 1982 but failed to interest any buyers despite a $250,000 publicity campaign, which included hiring the publicity firm Rogers and Cowan to arrange a large party and give out promotional Inchon jackets.

In August 1982, MGM/UA contracted the distribution rights to the film. One Way Productions came to an agreement with MGM that it would take care of the costs associated with advertising and distributing the film, if MGM agreed to distribute Inchon for a profit share of only 15 percent. The normal fee for the film distributor was thirty percent of profits. The film was released in the United States on the weekend of September 17, 1982. It was cut from 140 minutes to 105 minutes for the U.S. release. The film was shown in the United States and Canada. It was never shown in the United Kingdom. It took a total of five years from the preproduction period of the film to its release. Inchon was swiftly pulled from theater distribution because of its poor performance at the box office.

After the film's release, it was never again shown in theaters, and was never released on videocassette or DVD. In the early years of the 2000s (decade), Inchon was shown on the U.S. cable television outlet Goodlife Television Network (now called Youtoo), at the time owned by the Unification Church. Bootleg copies of the film circulated from individuals that had copied Inchon from these television broadcasts.