Marketing people who should have been fired!

[Road Warrior]

Friday, I went to see TMNT. It was surprisingly good! And, I say that because the trailers and TV spots led me to believe otherwise. So, what other good movies got horrible advertising?

One that comes to mind is Mean Girls. I remember the trailers revolving around Lindsay Lohan's character falling into that trash can. Thank God the movie wasn't the ridiculous slapstick comedy the ads were making it out to be.

 

[blind_fury]

Those who failed to market Idiocracy.

That's one of the funniest movies of 2006 and an insightful social commentary and most people will never know anything about it.

 

[Halcohol]

Those who failed to market Idiocracy.

That's one of the funniest movies of 2006 and an insightful social commentary and most people will never know anything about it.

I just saw that the other day and I laughed my ass off. "Go away! 'Batin!"

Waiting... was also a great movie for anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant, but it was almost completely shafted by the studio and only got a really limited release with little marketing whatsoever.

 

[Road Warrior]

Those who failed to market Idiocracy.

That wasn't the marketing departments fault. Fox saw the final product and thought it sucked, so they only released it in theaters for like two weeks.

 

[Catman]

The Superman Returns advertisers. They tricked me into thinking the movie was gonna be awesome!

 

[Sava]

T3... the f**king trailers were better than the movie


and also, The Hulk... Universal screwed up

 

[I_Hate_U_All]

yeah hulk was advetised as a popcorn flick, but turned out to be an actual ang lee film. OOPS.

I don't have the energy to search through my brain for more examples but I do have to say that tranformers looks like a candidate for bad marketing.

Bay's dissing online fanatics who have been of course screaming "damn you michael Bay!" over his changes to the characters designs and stuff. So good luck getting people in theaters, bay...

The trailer was lukewarm at best, typical Alien invasion movie kind of trailer you see all the time. Kinda like berg's war of the worlds one from not long ago in which the aliens are unseen and all the actors are running away from some invisible scary aliens, oooooooooh scary.

For me tranformers = FUN. I didn't get that from the trailer. Tranformers aren't scary, they're fun, big car robots with cool voices and stuff, with an epic story spanning from cybertron to earth over millions of years, FUN STUFF. Make it look like fun for the jesus' sake.

They're making a mistake by not putting the Transformers at the forefront as the main selling point of the film. What are people going to see this movie for? shia Labeaof? that guy from las vegas? tyrese? NO, we want giant friggin robots with guns and Megan Fox looking hot. Sell THAT.

 

[xwolverine2]

THE ISLAND.... they ruined EVERYTHING in the trailers and even tvspots!

 

[xwolverine2]

yeah hulk was advetised as a popcorn flick, but turned out to be an actual ang lee film. OOPS.

I don't have the energy to search through my brain for more examples but I do have to say that tranformers looks like a candidate for bad marketing.

Bay's dissing online fanatics who have been of course screaming "damn you michael Bay!" over his changes to the characters designs and stuff. So good luck getting people in theaters, bay...

The trailer was lukewarm at best, typical Alien invasion movie kind of trailer you see all the time. Kinda like berg's war of the worlds one from not long ago in which the aliens are unseen and all the actors are running away from some invisible scary aliens, oooooooooh scary.

For me tranformers = FUN. I didn't get that from the trailer. Tranformers aren't scary, they're fun, big car robots with cool voices and stuff, with an epic story spanning from cybertron to earth over millions of years, FUN STUFF. Make it look like fun for the jesus' sake.

They're making a mistake by not putting the Transformers at the forefront as the main selling point of the film. What are people going to see this movie for? shia Labeaof? that guy from las vegas? tyrese? NO, we want giant friggin robots with guns and Megan Fox looking hot. Sell THAT.

oh man..i feel the complete opposite... it didnt ruin anything for me, and it showed enough to get us hyped. that advertising was perfect.

 

[Dr.Dude]

The Hulk's a good example, even if it's been mentioned earlier...they need to shoot the guy that came up with the idea of representing a dark, psychological movie as a goofy action movie using commercials that show Hulk throwing the tank, with the background noise of a baseball announcer saying "He's getting a home run!"

Not to mention--Castaway. Still was a great movie and great performance by Tom Hanks, but the commercials gave away the entire damn ending of it.

 

[skorponok]

Waiting... was also a great movie for anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant, but it was almost completely shafted by the studio and only got a really limited release with little marketing whatsoever.

THis is one of the best points ever made on these boards

 

[skorponok]

oh man..i feel the complete opposite... it didnt ruin anything for me, and it showed enough to get us hyped. that advertising was perfect.

Me toot:

...and you DO NOT want to show too much of the robots in advertising...you don't wanna blow your load before people can see the movie...

Why is this something that people CANNOT understand

 

[I_Hate_U_All]

WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE

Good god.

 

[Elijya]

Whoever was in charge for Children of Men. The studio all but abandoned one of the greatest films of last year. One fan put together an incredible trailer which would have probably tripled it's box office if they'd aired it
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-lfs1UIKALQ

crazy since it had a huge budget as well

 

[I_Hate_U_All]

I can't even remember when that film came out. Must have been during all the crazy x3, yo ho ho pirates, and superman business.

 

[Elijya]

which movie, Children of Men? No, it had a wide-release on January 7th, but was showing on the indie film circuit for a few weeks beforehand.

$72 million dollar budget, $35 million dollar box office gross after virtually no advertising. It only made that much because of excellent word of mouth and reviews (91% on Rottentomatoes). Also recieved three Oscar noms.

 

[buddha182]

This is always the example case of terrble marketing, but Serenity. I have turned into a huge browncoat afterwards, but when it first came out I didn't know or care or anything... I even had to download it :X bad job marketing there. If they did it correctly maybe they could've properly introduced more people to the Firefly/Serenity universe

 

[buddha182]

which movie, Children of Men? No, it had a wide-release on January 7th, but was showing on the indie film circuit for a few weeks beforehand.

$72 million dollar budget, $35 million dollar box office gross after virtually no advertising. It only made that much because of excellent word of mouth and reviews (91% on Rottentomatoes). Also recieved three Oscar noms.

ooooh yea... I think the marketing on CoM was terrible, but it's more because of their distribution team f'cking up than anything.. it should've been a big wide release, none of that skewed ****, combined with good marketing and it would've easily broke $100 million b.o. but didn't

 

[Steelsheen]

Superman Returns. the movie itself wasnt as awesome as many hoped it would be, but the marketing was just plain ridiculous. a lot of the awe-inspiring Superman pictures started coming out AFTER the movie came out

 

[blind_fury]

That wasn't the marketing departments fault. Fox saw the final product and thought it sucked, so they only released it in theaters for like two weeks.

Well whover decided it deserved a tiny release and no promotion deserves to be fired. The movie is funny as hell and is a great satire about today's society.

 

[Elijya]

it wasn't just Fox who felt it was weak, they ran it by several test audiences and tried re-cutting the film to no avail

 

[blind_fury]

Meanwhile Date Movie gets released to 3,000 theaters and makes 85 million worldwide.

 

[chesslover]

I think there are too many movies being made.

 

[Catman]

Meanwhile Date Movie gets released to 3,000 theaters and makes 85 million worldwide.

The horror!

 

[dark_b]

Envelope Directors Roundtable: The challenges of marketing a film
Marketing campaigns may not be the first thing one thinks of when imagining the creative lives of some of the country's most well-known auteurs. But directors behind this season's biggest movies wrestle to a surprising degree with the issues of selling a movie -- whether it's Quentin Tarantino finding parts of the process "inspirational" or directors like Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman or James Cameron understanding that these Faustian bargains can help expose their film to a wider audience. Hear how these directors feel about one of moviedom's trickiest balances.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/mov...oundtable-challenges-of-marketing-a-film.html

a good video.