Monthly Archives: June 2004

MMM – Spider-Man 2

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You can read my full recap of the marketing for Spider-Man 2 at Film Threat.

Trying hard to not get bogged down in hyperbole, “Spider-Man 2” is probably being looked at as the key to the summer movie season. Sure, we had the return of a familiar ogre (actually two if you count Vin Deisel), the third year at Hogwarts and a special-effects disaster of a movie (sorry, that should have been “disaster movie”), but this is the tent-pole for the industry. If “Spider-Man 2” can recreate the numbers and excitement of 2002’s Spider-Man, then Sony and Hollywood as a whole will be happy.

MMM – The Terminal

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You can read my full recap of the marketing for The Terminal at Film Threat.

So there are three major selling points to this movie: Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The first two are just about money in the bank, despite Hanks’ latest being The Ladykillers, a movie that broke his string of unqualified successes. Still, Hanks’ presence at least provides a hook for the marketers to hang the rest of the campaign on and he’ll need to have quite a few more bombs before that changes.

MMM – The Chronicles of Riddick

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You can read my full Movie Marketing Madness recap for The Chronicles of Riddick at Film Threat.

That brings us to The Chronicles of Riddick which is the second movie in the Chronicles of Riddick franchise. What’s that? You didn’t know this was a franchise? Perhaps then you haven’t noticed that Pitch Black, the 2000 sci-fi flick that went a long way to making Vin Diesel a star has now been rebranded as “The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black” to make it fit into the series which also now includes the straight to video “Dark Fury” DVD.

Feedback question

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I was asked, via the Comments utility, what I would do if I were confronted with a situation wherein I had problems with “My Big Fat Independent Movie”‘s marketing campaign. This is a legitimate issue, since MBFIM was produced by Chris Gore, who runs FilmThreat, which hosts my Movie Marketing Madness column.

To respond to this, I believe I would have to be fair to my journalistic ethics and give my true opinion of the movie. My editor at FilmThreat, Eric, has never had a problem with anything I’ve written and I don’t expect he or anyone else would over this. FilmThreat, from the time I’ve spent there, has been a source of open discussion.

In all honesty, I had forgotten about this flick and this isn’t a movie I would likely pick for my MMM column since I am focusing more on the big-studio releases.

I do have this blog as an alternative publishing source, so that would provide me with some recourse to expressing my opinion, but I don’t see this becoming an issue.

Check out this story from Poynter.org for a similar situation/outcome.

Hope this address the issue in a satisfactory way.

MMM – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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You can read the full Movie Marketing Madness column for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at Film Threat:

Unlike with The Lord of the Rings, there was no continuation of the story in 2003. Have you ever been talking with someone, had a really good conversation going, and then one of you gets up to go to the bathroom? The conversation is never quite as good after that brief interruption. 2003 could prove to the bathroom break for the Harry Potter film franchise. Interesting, since J.K. Rowling seems to be able to take her sweet time with the books with no adverse reaction.