The Promotion (2008) - Conrad's under-appreciated supermarket comedy

♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Box Office Disaster of the Year + Best Comedy of the Year 

 

A tense stand-off in an office between two famous funny-men make up this poster for Steve Conrad's The Promotion

Doug is told that he is a 'shoe-in' for the open position of store manager of a large, newly opened Donaldson's grocery store, - but then the Canadian wildcard Richard enters the equation...

The Promotion is written and directed by great Floridian filmmaker Steve Conrad (Lawrence Melm (2004)).

Seann William Scott (Mr. Woodcock (2007)) gets totally free of the shadow of his goofy American Pie (1999; 2001; 2003; 2012) stardom here and is brilliant as an insecure, worried boss-to-be, and John C. Reilly (Dark Water (2005)) is incredibly funny as the imbecile Canadian competition with self-help audio in his ears. With a terrific supporting cast, this is a rare workplace comedy that's really good and hilarious. It challenges the power of the promotion for the regular Joe and succeeds handsomely with plenty of laughs at the expense of the often politically incorrect reality.

 

Related posts:

 

Steve Conrad: Wonder (2017) - Remember napkins for Chbosky's heart-warming family drama (co-writer)

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) - Stiller's sweet, visually splendid Christmas present (writer) 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) - Two Smiths inspire hearts and minds in true-story drama (writer)

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 8 mil. $

Box office: 457k $

= Box office disaster (returned 0.05 times its cost)

[The Promotion premiered 9 March (South by Southwest Film Festival, USA) and runs 86 minutes. Shooting took place around July 2006 in Chicago, Illinois. The film opened #46 to a 30k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #22 and in 81 theaters, grossing 408k $ (89.3 % of the total gross). The film only has two other recorded markets, (it was also released theatrically in Portugal but the result goes unreported.) Germany with 33k $ (7.2 %) and Singapore with 15k $ (3.3 %.) Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to 3 notches under this one. Conrad has not returned with a feature as a director since, instead directing some TV and more turning towards writing. Scott returned in Role Models (2008); Reilly in The Simpsons (2008, TV-series) and theatrically in Step Brothers (2008). The Promotion is rotten at 55 % with a 5.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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