Reaching an audience in the home video market is much different than reaching the theatrical audience. That often means the key art that’s used for home video releases is changed significantly from the one-sheets that were available during the theatrical marketing cycle. What I’m going to try and do is see what those changes are and what they mean for the appeal being made.

Ben-Hur

The studio is sticking with what didn’t quite work from the theatrical campaign, using the same image of Ben-Hur in the middle of the chariot race everyone knows from the Charlton Heston version on the box art for the home video release that graced the theatrical one-sheet. The main difference here is in the perspective of the background. On the movie’s poster it was all close-up showing how tight the quarters of the race were. Here, though, the camera shows a whole long arena behind him and his competition, with a bright blue sky at the top. Perhaps someone thought this pop of blue would work better to get people’s attention.

Bridget Jones’s Baby

Similarly, the exact same key art is used here from the theatrical campaign. There’s the slight change with the addition of a critic’s quote but that’s it. Otherwise it’s the same photo of Jones as part of a love triangle, with each of her suitors flanking her. At least it has the excuse of needing to remain thematically consistent with the earlier movies in the franchise.

Equity

Finally, a notable difference. The home video box art retains the overall concept of Gunn and the other three lead actors being arranged on the design but it drops the conceit of trying to overlay their faces on a stock market ticker and replaces it with overlaying images of numbers on the actor’s bodies. I’m not sure that’s a huge improvement and actually makes it a bit more confusing because it makes it seem like the story’s about hacking or something like that. At least the stock ticker was thematically accurate. The design as a whole isn’t that great on the box either, making this seem like the collected season of a show from USA Network.

Florence Foster Jenkins

Another case of the same artwork being used here as was part of the theatrical campaign. Ho hum…

Little Men

And another one. At least in this case, because it’s a smaller independent movie, I wasn’t expecting any great changes.