Wall-E Teaser Poster

Man, I really, really love this teaser poster for Wall-E. So beautiful and so clearly filled with emotion. It immediately makes me love the little robot. And at the same time, I feel a little sad for him. he looks so lonely in there, looking at the empty sky.

Pixar is obviously trying to do something different with Wall-E, and it shows in everything they have released so far. Take the example of this poster: it is much less colorful than what we came to expect from posters for animation directed at children. It is also a lot less “busy” than usual. There really isn’t much happening, and most of the poster is filled with the sky.

All of these is quite a gamble, marketing wise. But that is one gamble I’m happy they are taking. I hope that the movie is great, and that they succeed in selling it, because that kind of success can only mean good things for the movies that will follow.

(Via Upcoming Pixar)

New The Mist Movie Poster

I was divided about the first poster for The Mist. There were things I liked but I felt that the execution was lacking. Altough this new poster drops some of the interesting aspects of the first, I think it is, overall, a more successful effort.

The greatest achievement of the poster is that it manages to successfully make the mist seem like a palpable, oppressive and likely dangerous thing. A mist isn’t exactly the most scary monster in the world, so it takes some effort to achieve that. I also like that the poster gives us a sense that the characters are somewhat trapped, which I believe is consistent with the film’s story.

And yes, the poster does add a child, which is a very cheap way of raising the stakes. But hey, it kind of works.

(Via WorstPreviews)

Foreign Language Oscar Hopefuls Part IV – It Came From Europe

Yet more posters from films selected by their respective countries to compete for the best foreign language Oscar. This time just films from European countries.

Since this entry is a little long a placed most of it under the fold, as the kids say.

In case you are worried, I will put up a post with links to all these posts when I’m done.

Italy – La Sconosciuta – The Unknown

Spain – El Orfanato – The Orphanage

The Oxford Murders Poster

If you have a film that takes place in a prestigious university and that involves the use of mathematical symbols in order to solve murders, I think you can do a lot worse than using the imagery of a blackboard filled with mathematical mumbo jumbo and splattered with blood. The blood splatter in this poster looks particularly fake, but besides that I think it’s a decent execution of the concept.

This is not a terribly memorable poster, and it’s no likely to win any awards. But it does get the point across.

(Via IMPAwards)

Atonement Movie Poster

You know, I have read that in the book the character of Briony Tallis (played by Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai in the film) is quite central, but that the character has a much diminished role in the movie. Well, the character’s role in the marketing campaign will apparently be diminished to the point of near disappearance. The poster is all about the two lovers, played by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.

And that is probably the right choice, from a marketing standpoint. And I think the poster does a good job of illustrating the tension at the center of the film. The characters are separated, apparently hopelessly so. But the expressions and the way their faces are pointed makes us believe that they are still thinking about each other, still joined in an emotional sense.

And the poster doesn’t look bad either. So a good job all around.

(Via IMPAwards)

Yet More Oscar Hopefuls: Posters for Exiled, Secret Sunshine, Donsol and Eklavya

I really love taking a look at the posters from these films from all over the world. Hopefully you people aren’t getting bored by these posts.

Today I’m taking a cue from Twitch and bringing the posters for films from several Asian countries.

From Hong Kong – Exiled

From South Korea – Secret Sunshine

From the Philippines – Donsol

From India – Eklavya: The Royal Guard

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead Poster

If you go over to Jeff Well’s blog you will find a nice discussion of how this poster was influenced by the works of Saul Bass.You will also find a statement from ThinkFilm president Mark Urman about how they wanted an image that had lots of room for review quotes that could be placed in the newspaper adds. And this poster certainly meets that requirement.

However, as interesting as all that is, I’m not very fond of the poster. The movie itself is supposedly a rather dark thriller, but to me the poster seems like it should belong to a comedy. Perhaps a naughty, slightly dark comedy, but a comedy still.

I’m not sure why I get that feeling, but I guess it’s in large part because of the red horns and the crooked tail. For me those images evoke a mischievous but ultimately not very harmful devil. You know, the one that we generally see sitting in somebody’s shoulder, telling him to grab the last doughnut or something like that. The imagery is too on the nose for me to really take it seriously.

And as much as I like the Saul Bass, his style feels a bit old and outdated nowadays. Which is not to say that you can’t use it, but you do have to be careful about how you do it. The style would probably be a good match for a a lighter film that took place a few decades ago. But it will be very hard to make it work with a contemporary thriller.

Then again maybe I’m just a stupid kid and it will work with people older than me.

(Via Movie Marketing Madness)

New No Country for Old Men Movie Posters

“There are no cleans getaways”,”There are no laws left”,”You can’t stop what’s coming”. Well, I feel depressed already.

All kidding aside, I think that these new posters/banners/thingies for No Country for Old Men are quite interesting. They are kind of character posters where the most recognizable characteristic of each character, the face, doesn’t appear. And yet each poster manages to maintain it’s own identity.

The posters also reaffirms the dark tone of the picture and the bareness and desolation of the setting. They also reinforces the action elements of the film by having guns show prominently in each image. These elements aren’t going to be for everybody, but I like them and I think they give the movie a clear identity of it’s own.

So yeah, very interesting.

(Via solaceincinema.com. Thanks to Andrew for the tip.)

More Oscar Hopefuls: Posters for Days of Darkness and 881

Two more countries have selected films to compete for the Foreign Language Oscar. Canada went with the Denys Arcand pic Days of Darkness and Singapore went with 881. And here are the posters.

This is the French poster for Days of Darkness (L’ Âge des ténèbres). The film will be released there next week, but it will still be a while before it makes its way into the U.S. and Canada, so they might come up with another poster by then.

And here is the poster for 881. Quite shiny, isn’t it?

Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem Poster

JoBlo brings us this new poster for AvP, and it’s with much chagrin that I have to admit that I kind of like it.

After the first AvP turned out to be such a massive disappointment I promised to myself that I wouldn’t care about the sequel. And I still don’t, not really. But the image of earth with an Alien and a Predator gripping it did manage to get through to me and to remind me of why I was excited about the first film. I think it’s a great image, and certainly is something that can be used to build the campaign upon.

That said, the poster has too much open space. You have the main image at the top, and then the title and credits at the bottom, but nothing in between. I think this compromises the general look of the poster.

I also note that they decided to use the abbreviated title on the poster. Understandable, since Alien Vs. predator: Requiem is such a long title. But I’m still not sure I like it. AVPR isn’t exactly memorable.