That's certainly understandable, for a number of reasons, given the incredibly high expectations surrounding the much-anticipated film ... and some other issues with the film itself.
In the movie "Foxcatcher," Channing Tatum played Mark Schultz, and Steve Carell played John du Pont Adding to the anticipation: "Foxcatcher" had very long gestation period. In interviews, Miller said he had first come across the story about eight years earlier. This wrestling writer first heard about "Foxcatcher" in January 2012, when multiple entertainment websites reported (incorrectly) that Tatum had been cast to play Dave Schultz. Over the next three-plus years, I wrote dozens of articles tracking the progress of "Foxcatcher" as College Wrestling Examiner for the online news service Examiner.com; a number of these stories ranked among my most-read over the four-and-a-half years I wrote for that website.
"Foxcatcher" was filmed in late 2012 and early 2013. The movie was originally slated to premiere at a Hollywood fundraiser in November 2013, and open in New York City and Los Angeles immediately after Christmas 2013, making it eligible for the Oscar awards telecast in early 2014. However, at the last minute director Miller pulled "Foxcatcher" to make additional edits; reports indicated that in original form, it weighed in at approximately three hours. After being slimmed down to a much trimmer two hours, 15 minutes in early 2014, "Foxcatcher" made its debut at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation and rave reviews; Bennett Miller was singled out for "Best Director" honors. Throughout the spring and summer of 2014, "Foxcatcher" continued to appear at major film festivals, garnering more accolades and awards ... all with the goal of officially opening in theaters in NYC and LA just before Thanksgiving, to qualify for the 2015 Oscars. That strategy paid off: "Foxcatcher" was nominated for three Golden Globe awards by the Hollywood foreign press, and earned five Oscar nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. It also earned a place on a number of film critics' "Ten Best" lists for 2014.
The wrestling community's anticipation was also aided and abetted by some background elements which connected the movie to the sport. It was reassuring that a former high school wrestler (Ruffalo) was cast to portray Dave Schultz ... and that Tatum had participated in a number of sports in school, and played a former high school wrestler in the 2009 movie "Fighting" about a New York bare-knuckle fighter. Ruffalo and Tatum had been instructed and coached by top-flight amateur wrestlers such as Bruce Baumgartner and Jesse Jantzen; in interviews with entertainment media, both actors said all the right things about how physically and mentally demanding the sport was, and how much they respected wrestlers. It was icing on the cake that we learned that a number of actual wrestlers -- and a real-life wrestling referee -- had been cast in minor roles
The casting, critical acclaim, and on-screen and behind-the-scenes contributions of individuals in the wrestling community gave many of us hope that "Foxcatcher" would provide an honest retelling of the Dave Schultz tragedy that wrestlers and fans could embrace -- while being a quality film that would be showered with glowing reviews and honors --which could potentially elevate the sport of wrestling in the minds of the general public, and hold a warm place in the hearts of moviegoers, much in the same way that "Hoosiers", "Rudy" and "Rocky" have.
So ... why didn't sizable segments of the wrestling community come to embrace "Foxcatcher"?
For some fans, it may be as simple as "there just wasn't enough wrestling." I haven't put a stopwatch to the movie to tally the number of minutes of mat action, but I would guess it would add up to about two or three minutes total.
A major factor may be the film's point-of-view. It's safe to say that many in wrestling expected "Foxcatcher" to be "The Dave Schultz Story." However, there were early indicators pointing in another direction. For starters, it was stated that "Foxcatcher" would be based on Mark Schultz's memoir (published about the same time as the movie's release). A number of initial reports from entertainment websites described the movie as a real-life crime drama, a concept that became a recurring theme in many movie reviews.
For some folks familiar with the actual goings-on at the Foxcatcher training facility two decades ago, Bennett Miller's film felt foreign, unfamiliar. Some basic story elements seemed out-of-sequence. More than one person said, "So John du Pont's mother died and he went crazy?" -- a possible conclusion to someone who saw "Foxcatcher" but may not be familiar with how events unfolded in real life. Even realizing that any film must collapse real-life events into reel-time and blend together disparate elements with the idea of helping viewers who wouldn't know the Schultz Brothers from the Doobie Brothers gain an understanding of the story.
An even more basic issue: some in the wrestling community have openly expressed disappointment that they had not had the opportunity to see "Foxcatcher" in theaters because it never made it to their city, or, if it did, they didn't know it because of lack of advertising and promotion. The studio appears to have used a marketing strategy appropriate for a foreign film or documentary rather than a wide-release strategy (characterized by the line "in theaters everywhere" in advertising) for major motion pictures that's more familiar to most moviegoers. This meant that "Foxcatcher" tended to open in "art-house" movie theaters in major metropolitan areas, not at mall multiplexes. For example, in checking out the list of cities in Ohio where the movie was scheduled to appear, only three were listed -- Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati -- and in each, the movie was slated to open in what could be classified as an art-house theater. Even sadder for the wrestling community, the initial list of cities where "Foxcatcher" was slated to appear in its national rollout tended to be large "sunbelt" cities in the southern US ... not necessary amateur wrestling country. There was very limited opportunity to see the movie in a theater which could be classified as wrestling hotbeds, such as Iowa, Oklahoma, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It didn't help that Sony Pictures Classics appeared to have done little to reach out to the wrestling community, including wrestling websites and publications, to help spread the word about the movie. This writer had written numerous articles over the years related to the subject, including a five-part series on the murder of Dave Schultz for InterMat, as well as articles in anticipation of the release of "Foxcatcher" for InterMat and the online news service Examiner.com. I heard from the studio just once, asking for the original source of a photo I had used in an article. It might have made sense for the studio to have conducted an informative outreach to wrestling journalists and leaders within the amateur wrestling community, providing updates, links to previews, and other promotional tools to build anticipation for the movie and inform a ready-made audience.
One year after "Foxcatcher" opened in theaters on either coast in time for Thanksgiving 2014, a good portion of those in the wrestling community still feels disappointed -- not just in the movie itself, but also how it was promoted and distributed. However, the community can give thanks for the documentary "The Prince of Pennsylvania" shown on ESPN in October. That "30 for 30" documentary provided a much more straightforward telling of the Foxcatcher story as many of us in the wrestling community remember it -- with a focus on the murder of Dave Schultz, from the perspectives of a diverse group of individuals, each with a significant contribution to the telling of the story -- in just one hour ... less than half the time of the critically-acclaimed Hollywood movie.
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