‘The Bannen Way:’ A Comedy on HBO?

Some excited tweets and Facebook posts published last week on The Bannen Way social media accounts pages may have revealed an international tv distribution deal and DVD release of the multiple Streamy Award winning drama series.

From July 10 to July 31, HBO Canada will be airing the full 93 minutes (a feature-length version of the web series) in HD on The Movie Network and available on demand starting July 13, according to TMN’s online schedule. The listing describes The Bannen Way as an “action comedy,” which at first appears to be a listing error and not an attempt to re-market like in Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, the failed low budget indie drama successfully rebranded as an intentional “quirky new black comedy.”

But then Sony Pictures Home Entertainment let loose a press release

announcing the July 20 release date for the Bannen DVD as a “full-length feature film” posted under the genres “Action, Adventure, Comedy, Thriller.” Listed on Netflix and ready for pre-order on Amazon (where the feature version appears to be viewable on demand right now), the DVD contains an all-new featurette Getting Behind The Bannen Way, which includes segments “The Assassins”, “The Babes,” “The Girl,” “The Man,” “The Style,” and “The Vision.”

This distribution strategy—reformating a highly popular Crackle web series as a feature-length movie—is emerging as a standard model for Sony Pictures Television, who distributed Angel of Death as a full 90 minute movie on SpikeTV to push sales for its DVD release which followed shortly after.