…it’s a solid, consistent campaign for a movie that instantly shot to the top of your parent’s To See Soon List. It’s hard to see this generating much interest in the under-45 age group outside of a few individuals who are big Streep fans. My guess, though, is that’s fine and the older crowd of white people might be enough to turn it into a modest hit. The marketing promises the audience won’t be challenged at all but instead be taken for a moderately enjoyable ride on a story that is charming and slight. You know, like a super hero movie but with some Oscar aspirations.
Somewhere around the second trailer, though, that started to turn and it became more and more interesting as the story came more into focus. Foster’s performance came more to the forefront and the dynamic between him and Pine was more clear and the campaign started to show audiences what the movie was trying to say, what it’s message was. If the audience caught that message it could be enough to turn out some specialty box office success.
What’s interesting to me is that there’s not much of an appeal to nostalgia going on here. This movie’s story seems to differ pretty significantly from that of the original and so I don’t think the studio is really playing up the ties between the two. Maybe the original isn’t as well known as some of other properties (which begs the question why make this a remake and not just an original story…oh right, because you can’t sell anything with an unknown title). Whatever the reason, this is being sold as more or less an original movie, not one that requires existing knowledge of what’s come before.
But this is the Rogen brand. While many find his constant embrace of stoner humor the sign of a lazy mind, this is what he does. It’s his niche, the creative corner of the world he’s carved out for himself and dammit, he’s going to own it. Yeah, in 10 years or so he might decide the well has run dry and he needs to do an indie drama to jumpstart the next phase of his career, but for now he’s very much killing it by making movies with his friends that are filled with sex and drug humor, so if that’s not what you’re expecting from Sausage Party, I’m not sure what to tell you.
