Hollywood Reporter

STX’s ‘Happytime Murders’ Marketing Keeps Focus on Puppets Behaving Badly: The conceit that puppets exist in the world alongside humans isn’t unique, exactly. The Muppet Show and subsequent movies all used it. What this week’s The Happytime Murders seems to do differently is draw a clear line between those characters’ on-screen personas and off-screen lives.

Cinematic Slant

Surprising Audiences With Cinematic Connections: It comes down to how much you’re dictating to the audience versus letting them decide. That lesson has been learned by just about every consumer products company in one way or another.

Papillon – Marketing Recap: The campaign itself isn’t hugely engaging, but there are some good elements to it. The poster is kind of the strongest part of it while the trailer doesn’t offer a very strong sales pitch. It’s not bad, it’s just a more complex story than can be captured here and it doesn’t convey a clear message to the audience. Aside from the release of clips, there isn’t much on the publicity front, either, so I’d be surprised if awareness of the movie was very high.

Support The Girls – Marketing Recap: The focus is squarely on Regina Hall and that’s very much a good thing. She’s obviously the character the audience is being asked to invest in most heavily and so it makes sense to put her front and center.

Searching – Marketing Recap: I think what I like most about the campaign is that it doesn’t try too hard to be overly technical, something that almost always comes off as ill-concerned and slightly embarrassing. Yes, there’s plenty of the movie’s tech elements here, but they didn’t try to do anything like create a fake app experience or anything that would have seemed out of touch.

Finding Your On-Ramp to Classic Films: The biggest question with any “I want to learn more” project is where to start. Thankfully, it’s also the easiest one to answer. Here’s my step-by-step guide to expanding your film experience in an age where you’re not just going to randomly turn past Turner Classic Movies or where “Family Classics” on WGN each Sunday afternoon won’t begin your education.

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