Odeon Films is targeting pre-existing fans to sell Trailer Park Boys The Movie when the hotly anticipated comedy arrives on around 200 screens on Oct. 6.

The publicity campaign comprises major TV and print media buys directed at fans of the cult Showcase TV series, which is said to draw ratings between 300,000 and 400,000 per episode. Odeon president Bryan Gliserman hopes to draw that same number to the movie, plus some 500,000 new fans.

The comedy, produced by Ivan Reitman and directed by Mike Clattenburg, has been touted by many as a potential hit.

‘It’s really funny,’ says Gliserman, ‘and we’re optimistic that newcomers to Trailer Park Boys The Movie will agree. Existing fans will be absolutely ecstatic.’

The media blitz includes a teaser trailer, three posters and a movie-specific website (www.tpbmovie.com) – complete with multimedia, downloads, photos, and blogs – that frames Ricky (Rob Wells), Julian (John Paul Tremblay), Bubbles (Mike Smith) and the rest of the disreputable Trailer Park Boys gang.

To woo the media, press junkets on Oct. 2 and 3 will end with a world premiere and concert at the Mod Club in Toronto. The cast will then return home to an East Coast premiere on Oct. 5 in Halifax.

Meanwhile, other upcoming domestic releases are looking mostly to raves from recent festival screenings to give their own box-office prospects a boost.

After opening the Toronto International Film Festival and the Atlantic Film Festival, the posters and trailers for The Journals of Knud Rasmussen have been finalized by AAC’s Motion Picture Distribution ahead of a Sept. 29 theatrical release on 50 screens – including six programmed by TIFF’s Film Circuit.

MPD is targeting viewers of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, the first feature by Knud directors Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn, plus cinephiles and aboriginal audiences.

‘We feel the awareness in Toronto, along with the reputation of the filmmakers and the attractiveness and success of the previous film, will give us a nice lead-in to the release,’ says Jim Sherry, MPD’s executive managing director.

Meanwhile, Philippe Falardeau’s Congorama – a comedy about a Belgian man (Olivier Gourmet) who sets out to find his biological Quebec family – will have its Quebec premiere on Oct. 18 at Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, with the entire cast on hand to snag local press, before launching in that province on Oct. 20 on around 35 screens.

‘Congorama will be well-received in Quebec. The critics will love the film because it’s close to the roots of Quebec and its people,’ predicts Sylvain Gagné, head of distributor Christal Films.

In English Canada, Mongrel Media is staggering the rollout for Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary Manufactured Landscapes – about photographer Edward Burtynsky – initially on one screen each in Toronto on Sept. 29 and Vancouver on Oct. 20, ahead of additional dates through the fall.

Meanwhile, Érik Canuel’s Bon Cop, Bad Cop has moved tantalizingly close to beating Porky’s as the highest-grossing domestic movie of all time at the Canadian box office. It ended the Sept. 22-24 weekend just under $11.2 million – Porky’s record – poised to break it at the end of the month.

Also over Sept. 22-24, Stéphane Lapointe’s romantic comedy La vie secrète des gens heureux surpassed the $500,000 box-office mark on 54 dates in Quebec, on its way to projected box office of $650,000, according to Christal Films.

Alliance Atlantic Vivafilm reported a cumulative $2.3 million in Quebec box office for the family drama Le secret de ma mère, from director Ghyslaine Côté and starring Ginette Reno, with an additional $40,000 in gross receipts in the rest of Canada.