Sense and Sensibility (film) - Marketing and Release

Marketing and Release

In the United States, Sony and Columbia Pictures released Sense and Sensibility on a "relatively slow" schedule when compared to mainstream films, first premiering it on 13 December 1995. Believing that a limited release would position the film both as an "exclusive quality picture" and increase its chances of winning Academy Awards, Columbia dictated that its first weekend involve only seventy cinemas in the US; it opened in eleventh place and earned $721,341. The film's release was slowly expanded until it was present in over one thousand cinemas across the US. To gain the greatest benefit of the publicity surrounding Academy Award nominees, the film's release was timed to coincide with "Oscar season". Sense and Sensibility's release saw several brief increases both when the nominees were announced and during the time of the ceremony in late March. By the end of its release in the US, it garnered an "impressive" total domestic gross of $43,182,776.

Due to Austen's reputation as a serious author, the producers were able to rely on high-brow publications to help market their film. Near the time of its US release, large spreads in The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Film Comment, and other media outlets featured columns on Lee's production. In late December, Time magazine declared it and Persuasion to be the best films of 1995. Andrew Higson referred to all this media exposure as a "marketing coup" because it meant the film "was reaching one of its target audiences." Meanwhile, most promotional images featured the film as a "sort of chick flick in period garb." New Market Press published Thompson's screenplay and film diary; in its first printing, the hard cover edition sold 28,500 copies in the US. British publisher Bloomsbury released a paperback edition of the novel containing film pictures, same title design, and the cast's names on the cover, whilst Signet Publishing in the US printed 250,000 copies instead of the typical 10,000 a year; actress Julie Christie read the novel in an audiobook released by Penguin Audiobooks. Sense and Sensibility increased dramatically in terms of its book sales, ultimately hitting tenth place on the The New York Times Best Seller list for paperbacks in February 1996.

In the United Kingdom, Sense and Sensibility was released on 23 February 1996 in order to "take advantage of the hype from Pride and Prejudice", another popular Austen adaptation recently released. Columbia Tristar's head of UK marketing noted that "if there was any territory this film was going to work, it was in the UK." After receiving positive responses from previewing audiences members, marketing strategies focused on selling it as both a costume drama and as a film attractive to mainstream audiences. Attention was also paid to marketing Sense and Sensibility internationally. Because the entire production cycle had consistently emphasised it as being "bigger" than a normal British period drama literary film, distributors avoided labelling it as "just another English period film." Instead, marketing materials featured quotations from populist media outlets such as The Daily Mail, which compared the film to Four Weddings and a Funeral. Worldwide, the film ultimately grossed $134,582,776, a sum that was considered a box office success. It had the largest box office gross out of the Austen adaptations of the 1990s.