'The Maiden Heist' may not be released

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported this morning that The Maiden Heist, filmed in Boston and Worcester and set in Boston, may not be released. Instead, it looks like the film, which stars Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy, and Christopher Walken, will go direct to video:

It looks as if you won't be seeing the Worcester Art Museum on the big screen anytime soon … unless you have one of those giant wall-spanning plasma TVs at home.

Most of us will have to settle for a small screen viewing of “The Maiden Heist,” a comedy with several scenes shot in Worcester Art Museum's Renaissance Court and galleries. Financial problems at the film's distribution company mean the film likely will go straight to DVD without benefit of a theatrical run....

Things began to go wrong after the movie, produced by Yari Film Group (“Crash” and “The Illusionist”), wrapped in 2008.

Yari had sold the film's DVD and cable rights to Sony Pictures and Yari was going to do the theatrical release and finance the publicity, which would benefit both partners, said Rob Paris, the movie's producer.

Then, Yari's fledgling distribution arm went bankrupt, meaning there was no money for the all-important — and very expensive — publicity blast every movie relies on.

At that point, filmmakers were hopeful another distributor could be found. Then the financial markets tanked and money could not be raised to buy the DVD rights back from Sony.

“We couldn't go out and sell this movie to another distributor without those home video rights because, frankly, that's where your safety net is for profitability,” Paris said.

Since it already had the DVD rights, couldn't Sony just squeeze “The Maiden Heist,” a relatively small film made for just under $20 million, into its theatrical release calendar?

“Sony just considered it a loss,” Paris said. “Their home video unit is completely separate from the theatrical unit at Sony. The theatrical unit has plenty of movies for this year and plenty of movies for next year. They don't need an extra movie.”