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When does a movie's award campaign cease to come off like a transparent attempt to buy some prizes, and start feeling like the grassroots beginning of a new, celebrity-courting, pseudoreligious cult? How about when the studio behind it decides to send out 130,000 screeners yes, you read correctly including one to every single mind-malleable member of SAG. Welcome to the birth of Crashology. Hide your children.

While most studios consider the mailing of 12,000-15,000 screeners to be a major push, the indie distrib is sending out north of 130,000 — including the unprecedented move of including all members of the Screen Actors GuildScreen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild. [...]


Lionsgate Theatrical Films president Tom Ortenberg said the "Crash" campaign will cost several hundred thousand dollars. [...]

"Crash" has been gaining awards heat, with writer-director Paul Haggis picking up a number of major noms, and the film itself picking up a SAG ensemble nom last week.

Lionsgate had sent DVD screeners to the 2,100 members of the SAG nominating committee. After the film picked up the ensemble-cast nom last week, Lionsgate decided to mail a copy to every member.

While sending out enough Crash screeners to keep the entire population of Evansville, IN. in "why you can't trust a Mexican locksmith" Sandra Bullock monologues for the rest of their lives might at first seem like overkill, it's really a small gesture when looking at the bigger picture of what a couple big trophy scores could do for the Movement. It won't be long before intake centers start popping up across the globe, helpfully duct-taping their interviewees' hands to the steering wheel of a Chevy Impala before placing a cinderblock on the accelerator, in order to precisely determine just how many Racismetans need to be cleansed from their new convert's soul.