At Filmmaker we’re always interested in alternative forms of distribution, so we took note of the unusual “window-busting” release plans for Noel, Chazz Palminteri’s directorial debut which premiered in September at the Toronto Film Festival. The sentimental holiday film which stars Susan Sarandon, Paul Walker and Penelope Cruz will premiere in theaters November 12 via The Convex Group, a new company headed by WebMD founder Jeff Arnold. Then, on Sunday, November 28 Noel will screen once on the TNT network. That day, the film will also become available to Amazon.com customers as $4.99 Flexplay DVDs, disks which erase themselves 48 hours after they are removed from their containers.

The film will also be marketed using Lidrocks — CDs containing movie trailers that are affixed to the lids of Cokes bought at movie theaters. Both Lidrocks and Flexplay are products owned and/or controlled by Convex, which describes itself as “a media and entertainment company that acquires and integrates unique assets to create new media networks.”