Movies that may have been screwed by their marketing

[GENERAL RAAM582]

The Amazing Spider-Man - Wasn't completely an untold story and over 45 minutes of the film was shown in trailers, clips, misc videos prior to the release of the film.

John Carter - I actually didn't know of this film's existence until everyone was talking about it bombing.

Dredd - No one wanted to see it, sucks, it was a pretty great shoot em' up action film.

 

[BestGirl]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Star Trek Into Darkness. The decision to hide as much about the villain as possible was puzzling.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

It was puzzling. Abrams wanted to do his usual "Hide as much about an aspect of the movie as possible" and not only chose something that was the worst kept secret, but also chose something that would have benefitted the movie's B.O. if marketed. Not only that, but he went out of his way to do so too by doing extra takes of scenes using the other name for Khan just for the commercials.

I hope he doesn't do this that much for Star Wars. Abrams needs to learn not every movie requires that.

It's like withholding Heath Ledger's joke pre-war paint and scars and not revealing it was joker until the movie was release.

And with Amazing Spider-Man, Sony screwed that movie over when they decided late in the process they wanted to withhold most of the "untold story" elements until the sequel.

 

[Anno_Domini]

The Amazing Spider-Man

A film which was promoted with the title "The Untold Story", which ended up being untold.

This.

Everything about TAS-M was about telling an untold story, and all we got was just a retelling of an origin we already saw ten years ago with a similar villain as well. Could be that Sony just made them get rid of an actual untold story, but you'd think the marketing would have changed once they had to take out certain scenes, but nope.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Sony pretty much just went "Aw, f**k it" with that their advertising.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

It isn't a surprise that the advertising of TASM was unfocused since the movie itself was.

It reminded me of that Simpsons episode where a bunch of executives ask a focus group of kids what they want from Itchy & Scratchy and get a bunch of contradicting information. Only unlike Roger Meyers, Sony actually listened and filmed it.

 

[The Sage]

Warrior. The marketing did it an injustice.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Yeah they definitely should marketed that as a Oscar contender. Also, I think probably would have benefitted more if it came out 2 months later.

 

[jacobed]

Dream house. Marketed as a generic horror/ghost type movie when it's not at all. It's a physchological character movie with thriller elements.

 

[Anno_Domini]

Warrior. The marketing did it an injustice.

I couldn't even mention Warrior because I literally don't remember any marketing to say it was bad or not, haha. If we're to mention a lack of marketing, I could also bring up Batman Begins because I don't remember anything really during the 2004-2005 year.

 

[Victarion]

Seems like Shutter Island was misadvertised.

 

[mclay18]

I thought the marketing for Shutter Island was done well. It opened in February 2010 to a nice $41M opening, and had a great 3x multiplier.

Of course, there are the Scorcese fanatics out there too. But I thought that pic was exceptionally well marketed.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Shutter Island wasn't screwed by their advertising, but it was marketed more as a supernatural thriller, but it was a psychological thriller. This seems to be the case with many psychological thrillers.

 

[jmc]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Star Trek Into Darkness. The decision to hide as much about the villain as possible was puzzling.

My argument is would not hiding the villain have changed anything?

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

My argument is would not hiding the villain have changed anything?

There's a lot more to build off of if they revealed Khan in the commercials. They could built a lot off of saying that this is the most dangerous villain the Enterprise ever faced.

Building up the villain is a great marketing strategy that they tried to do, but building it up with name character focusing more on the villain during the commericials instead of the action would been a better strategy to me.

 

[Warhammer]

There's a lot more to build off of if they revealed Khan in the commercials. They could built a lot off of saying that this is the most dangerous villain the Enterprise ever faced.

Building up the villain is a great marketing strategy that they tried to do, but building it up with name character focusing more on the villain during the commericials instead of the action would been a better strategy to me.

It worked wonders for The Dark Knight. And then the rest was history.

 

[Victarion]

Shutter Island wasn't screwed by their advertising, but it was marketed more as a supernatural thriller, but it was a psychological thriller. This seems to be the case with many psychological thrillers.

Bingo. I still enjoyed the movie, though. Now that I think about it, I'd say The Village was hurt by its advertising.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

It worked wonders for The Dark Knight. And then the rest was history.

Yep, and Iron Man 3 (marketing wise), The Dark Knight Rises, and Skyfall. Not saying they're the only reason, but all three presenting their villain front and forth in the commercials does have an effect.

Yes, Cumberbatch was on a poster but there didn't really utilize the villain in the marketing as much as they should have, which many other sources and sites also say too.

 

[Rocketman]

 

[redhawk23]

My argument is would not hiding the villain have changed anything?

Other than Kirk Spick and maybe Scotty, Kahn is the most recognized trek name for non-fans.

Why else make another film about Kahn to begin with?

 

[Max J Power]

Warrior. The marketing did it an injustice.

Indeed. The marketing made it look like a generic sports movie, when the movie was so much better than that.

 

[Burgundy LaRue]

I don't know if this movie exactly qualifies, but I thought The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo would have been better served had it been released in late October rather than Christmas. Because it's not full of the holiday spirit. They tried to push it as this edgy 'feel bad story for the Christmas season' but it just felt wrong. Releasing it just a few weeks earlier may have helped.

 

[metaphysician]

Don't forget that more marketing focus on the villain would mean the STID marketing could leverage Cumberbatch's charisma. After all, nobody knew Raoul Salva, but that didn't mean giving Javier Bardem a chance to chew the scenes was a bad marketing idea.

 

[Iron_Stark]

The Incredible Hulk. They released the FIRST trailer just 3 months before the movie was released. They didn't market it as a reboot, the teaser trailer had unfinished cgi, they completely screwed that movie over.

They should've released the trailer that came in a Best Buy dvd that had a bunch of trailers for upcoming movies. IIRC, it started had Banner/Norton on the chair like the old tv series with the "DANGER" sign flashing. That right there showed it was a reboot. Then they should've released the movie in '09 since there wasn't any kind of competition that year. That was just stupid on Marvel's part.

 

[jacobed]

I agree on the Hulk and that's a true movie being screwed. Like amazing Spiderman sure the movie wasn't exactly like the trailers but the movie still made 700 million so I don't think that was screwed. Hulk on the other hand yeah, they were screwed big time