There is something wrong in the world

Time Out Chicago Issue 23: Aug 4–Aug 11, 2005

Duma's demise?

A top-notch family film may not see theaters beyond Chicago

By Justine Elias

CALL OF THE WILD First-time actor Alex Michaletos learns to love, and then let go of, a rescued cheetah in "Duma."

This may be the summer of comic-book movies and we've-seen-it-all-before sequels and remakes, but Carroll Ballard is one movie director who believes in telling visually stunning adventure stories that kids haven't seen before.

Unfortunately, the studio that financed his new movie, Duma—the story of a ten-year-old white South African boy and his pet cheetah—isn't confident that parents will buy tickets. For the Oscar-winning filmmaker, who made The Black Stallion (1979) and Fly Away Home (1996), a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Chicago release for Duma (that's the cheetah's name) may mark the end of a heralded career.

That's a shame, say critics who have seen Duma, which they call the rare, exciting family-oriented film that respects both the children and adults in the audience. The support of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Roger Ebert, Ballard says, was the critical factor in getting the studio to commit to screen Duma for one week in Chicago—but that's as far as it'll go. (A studio spokesperson hadn't commented to TOC at press time.)

"I'm appalled at what's happening," he says. "But this is not about evil studios so much as it is about the way the business is structured these days."

The film is based on the 1997 book How It Was With Dooms, by Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and Xan Hopcraft. It tells the true story of a boy who finds an orphaned cheetah cub and raises it on his family's farm, later setting out on a quest across southern Africa to return the animal to its rightful home as it approaches adulthood.

"Duma is the best American movie I've seen so far this year," says Charles Taylor, a columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger. "It's further proof that Carroll Ballard is the greatest poet of nature working in the movies. If Warner Bros. can't spend the pittance it would cost to promote a national release of Duma, they've basically announced their own uselessness to the future of movies."

What's the problem, then? Parents may campaign for quality entertainment and kids may enjoy it when it's put in front of them. But in this era of marketing Vin Diesel as a Navy-SEAL-turned-nanny, tickets have to sell fast. And Ballard isn't optimistic that Warner Bros. wants to—or knows how to—market the film.

"They know, after playing it in three cities, that people who saw it liked the film," he says. "But they also know that nobody wants to go see it based on the ads." Warner Bros. spent only $6 million—about one sixth of what the average movie costs—to make Duma, but the industry's peculiar calculus holds that the studio spend about $25 million more on promotion and advertising.

Ballard has traveled to desert sands and Arctic landscapes to get the shots he's needed, but his lyrical style and focus on nature and animals have gone against the grain of jittery entertainment for pop culture–saturated kids and teenagers.

"I don't believe that children cannot be calm during a movie," Ballard says. "If you get their attention, they will be transfixed."

Ballard says movie executives tell him his past films, which have earned five Oscar nominations and one special Academy Award, wouldn't be made today. "They couldn't sell them," he says.

Yet there is precedent for a studio to reverse itself: In 1995, Warner Bros. rereleased another well-reviewed, little-seen family movie, A Little Princess. The film garnered Oscar nominations and further acclaim. But Ballard says he is exhausted. "This is going to be the last movie I'm ever going to make," he says. "It is the end of the road for me. " What he wants is for people in Chicago to see Duma.

Duma opens for a limited Chicago run beginning Friday 5. See Film for theaters and times.

To voice your support for Duma, go to www2.warnerbros.com/web/main/help/fan_mail.jsp