Chud.com sat down with director Bill Condon and talked about 'DreamGirls' which hits stores tomorrow.

Chud's Jeremy Smith asked a skew of questions including discussion about the promotion of the film and how it could have effected the Oscar chances.

Q: But this was also such a massively promoted film, not just because it was a big movie and a major theatrical release for Dreamworks, but also because of the Oscar component. The interesting thing about Dreamgirls is that those things were conflated: a lot of the fall releases, like The Departed, had the opportunity to be released as movies before the Oscar campaigns kicked into overdrive, whereas Dreamgirls came out, and it was like, ""This is an Oscar movie and a mainstream entertainment."" What's it like to promote a movie with those kinds of expectations?

Condon: Right from the beginning, it was always, ""What do you think about the Oscar?"" And I always said the same thing, which was ""If it happens, it's a nice surprise. But you never expect it."" And it turned out not to happen in a big way. It always felt to me a little... I wish people hadn't been talking about it, frankly. I guess it's part of opening at the end of December and being so close to that whole season. But I think you're right. I think it does become too connected to everything else about the movie.


Q: I really felt the film didn't have a chance to be appreciated as a movie. Were you frustrated by that?

Condon: It all happens so fast, and it becomes such a big job for several weeks, where you're just promoting it and promoting it. The one thing that was a little frustrating was that right from the moment that we showed twenty minutes of the film at Cannes, people started talking it up. It was always regarded as this overhyped movie, but I don't think it was the studio that was hyping it. It was just that people would see it and start talking about that stuff. It really wasn't cultivated. But there you go.


/www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=10012"">Read the full interview here"