The Hollywood Reporter

Warner Bros. Bets on College Nostalgia for Melissa McCarthy’s ‘Life of the Party’: The marketing campaign for the comedy included a university-centered premiere contest, trailers heavy on back-to-college jokes and posters highlighting the star power of the lead actress.

Cinematic Slant

Terminal – Marketing Recap: The lackluster effort shown here to sell what might be a slick, fun and stylish noir betrays a lack of faith that the movie could even find an interested audience, much less motivate them to action. It’s disappointing because these are just the kind of creative risks more filmmakers should be making. While the marketing materials in particular have resulted in a bit of conversation about the movie it’s largely flying under most everyone’s radar.

Imagining a 90s Cinematic Avengers Lineup: The current MCU continuity makes it clear that the emergence of enhanced individuals is relatively recent development, with Stark being the first real public hero since the disappearance of Captain America at the end of WWII. While it’s unclear how out there Captain Marvel was, let’s assume for the moment she was operating at least mostly in secret, be it on Earth or in space. So any expansion of the roster would need to be a primarily clandestine group akin to the Secret Avengers.

What If Netflix Created Its Own Film Festival?: That kind of effort could be a lot of fun and provide its original features with a good foundation for audience word-of-mouth in exactly the way other film festivals do currently. In true Netflix fashion, though, the most interesting execution on the idea might be a little out of the ordinary.

The Seagull – Marketing Recap: This looks fine and may well be worthy of the positive buzz that’s built up around it as a result of the festival and other screenings. But there’s a spark missing from the campaign that seems significant. The trailer never really pops with the power of the words and the poster looks like every third Miramax ensemble drama from the mid-90s on. Nothing particularly wrong here, just nothing that really helps the campaign stand out, likely an indication of a belief it’s not going to bring in a lot of converts.

A Kimmy Schmidt Movie and Other TV-to-Movie Transitions: The news got me thinking about other instances where a movie has directly continued the story from a TV show. I’m not talking about an adaptation or remake 20 years later, I’m talking about times when the original cast (or close to it) has taken the story right from the small screen to the big one. “Kimmy Schmidt” might not get a theatrically-released film given the show is a Netflix original, but there are plenty of times that TV shows have found extended life in theaters.

Why Tear Down When You Can Build Up?: It’s not just citizen journalists who are adding unwanted opinions to the mix, though. In a few recent cases it’s other filmmakers who have added some questionable takes to the conversation.

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer and content strategist who lives in the Chicago suburbs.