Yet another movie not screened for critics?

Just to be fair, I should note that the headline on this post is only semi-true … I think.

At any rate, one of my Canadian sources tells me that The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, the second theatrical film in the long-running VeggieTales franchise, will be screened for critics in the United States but not in Canada, even though the film is opening in both countries next Friday. But one of my American sources tells me he hasn’t heard a peep about press screenings even on his side of the border — though apparently an “early cut” was shown to church-based audiences a few months ago.

Discrepancies between our two countries when it comes to press screenings are not unprecedented; because they are often handled by different distributors on different sides of the border, “independent” films such as Doogal (2005) and Madea’s Family Reunion (2006) have been shown to critics in Canada even though they were not shown to critics in the States. But for a film being distributed across the continent by a single major studio, namely Universal, such a discrepancy would be kind of odd.

If things change, or it turns out there really is a screening somewhere, I shall come back and revise this post accordingly.

JAN 10 UPDATE: Apparently Variety saw the film last Saturday, and a handful of other critics saw it in advance, too.