My latest column for The Hollywood Reporter is a recap of the marketing for Sony Pictures’ Bad Boys For Life. With tracking estimating a $38 million to $50 million holiday opening weekend, Columbia’s campaign has positioned the movie as very much a throwback to the kind of movies associated with Michael Bay, who directed the … Continue reading Selling Bad Boys For Life
Selling Spies in Disguise
My latest column for The Hollywood Reporter is a recap of the marketing for Sony’s animated Spies in Disguise. The movie is loosely based on a 2009 short film from Lucas Martell of animation studios Mighty Coconut titled Pigeon: Impossible that can be watched in its entirety on YouTube. Fox/Disney’s campaign has emphasized the humor … Continue reading Selling Spies in Disguise
Selling Gemini Man
My latest post at The Hollywood Reporter is a recap of the marketing campaign for Gemini Man. Like 2016’s Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, the marketing of Gemini Man has been dominated by discussions of the technical aspects of how the movie was shot in 3D 4K with a frame rate 120 frames per second. … Continue reading Selling Gemini Man
Movie Marketing Madness: Collateral Beauty
Death seems to loom over everything in the new movie Collateral Beauty. Will Smith plays Howard, a man who loses both his wife and child in a great tragedy. He retreats from much of his life, alienating his friends and those around him. So he begins to write letters to concepts like Love, Time and … Continue reading Movie Marketing Madness: Collateral Beauty
Movie Marketing Madness: Suicide Squad
Want to get Movie Marketing Madness via email? Sign up here. Then connect with MMM on Twitter and Facebook. Comic books are filled with high-premise, ridiculously unreal stories. The format is basically built on them. You have to believe that a billionaire playboy would decide that wearing a bat suit was the best way to … Continue reading Movie Marketing Madness: Suicide Squad
Movie Marketing Madness: Concussion
The NFL has had a rough couple years in terms of publicity both on- and off the field. The league has been beset by bad press, whether it’s continued coverage of life-threatening player injuries or news about players engaging in spousal abuse or other felonies, infractions which usually earn them a slap on the wrist … Continue reading Movie Marketing Madness: Concussion
Selling Shark Tale
You can read my full recap of the marketing for Shark Tale at Film Threat. So Dreamworks now shows up to the CGI-animated underwater story an hour and a half into the party and, to make matters worse, they forgot to bring the beer. Dreamworks’ philosophy seems to be to make movies that are “edgy” … Continue reading Selling Shark Tale
Selling I, Robot
You can read my full recap of the marketing campaign for I, Robot at FilmThreat. In “I, Robot”, Will Smith plays Del Spooner, a robot-phobic detective assigned to investigate how a robot may have violated the three laws inherent in its programming and murdered a human being. Based on the Isaac Asimov novel, this is … Continue reading Selling I, Robot
