New Sex and the City Movie Posters

These two new Sex and the City posters are mostly unremarkable. Carrie walking the streets of NY, looking stylish. Probably gets at part of the core appeal of the franchise, but seems less effective, and a lot less visually appealing, than the first teaser poster.

But what I do find interesting is that once again the posters only feature Sarah Jessica Parker. Now, I’m neither the target audience for the film nor the biggest fan of the series, but I always believed that the friendship between the four main characters, and their different perspectives on life, were a huge part of the show’s appeal. It never felt like show that starred SJP and co-starred the other three.

So when the first teaser came out I thought it was understandable that they were using SJP, since she is the best known name in the cast and the only one that has made some sort of successful transition to movies. But I thought that the initial poster would be quickly followed by others featuring the other cast members and maybe even something with all of them, hitting the point that this isn’t just another SJP movie, it’s the reunion of Sex and the City. But so far it hasn’t happened, the poster campaign has only focused on Parker. And the movie opens May 30, not a lot of time left.

I wonder what is the thinking behind this decision.

(Via CinemaBlend)

Batman Today, Batman Tomorrow, Batman Forever

The Dark Knight, now in outdoor format! I don’t have anything of substance left to say about the TDK campaign, so I’ll just throw a few observations at you.

This is sort of a continuation of that first poster featuring Batman, isn’t it? Instead of seeing him just watching the town we see him preparing to jump into it and kick some butt. Surprisingly, I preferred the poster in which he was just watching.

This is the third The Dark Knight poster released in less than a week that shows a building with some broken windows. Coincidence, or theme? You decide.

Apparently the town depicted here is Honk Kong.

And that’s all I have for now. Hopefully it will be a couple of days before the next poster for The Dark Knight is released.

(Thanks to Casty the Clown for this latest)

Even More Batman

Yes, that’s right, more posters for The Dark Knight. Too much? Perhaps, but at least it’s too much of a good thing.

The first new poster can be seen above, and it showcases Batman in his Batcycle. Like the poster from last week the idea seems to be to show that the movie has lots of action and that Batman is a badass in it. It’s nice, but not as iconic or rich with subtext as the last poster was.

The other new posters are much more interesting. They each feature one of the three main characters of the film holding his symbol of choice, which covers about half of the character’s face.

If the face covering happened just on the poster for Harvey Dent it would be an obvious allusion to his transformation into Two-Face. But having the other characters cover part of their faces too makes things a little more complicated, and a little more intriguing too. Are the posters trying to tell us that all of them have more than one face? That they all have some part of them that is hidden? Maybe. Maybe this is just a way to say that Two-Face is an important character. Maybe they just felt it would make for a cool effect when you saw all the three together.

Either way, it works. Like so many of the posters from this film they use the iconic characters o create iconic images, but it also give us something to chew on, slowly deepening or understanding of the characters and the story, without ever telling too much.

Brilliant. Like I said, perhaps too much brilliance. At some point you find hard to care about yet another new poster no matter how cool it is. But that doesn’t make any individual poster any less amazing.

(Via Omelete)

Wanted Movie Posters

If I was to make a list of the 10 summer films most likely to be box office disappointments I think Wanted would easily secure a spot. Nothing I have seen from the marketing for this film so far has made it look like more than a generic action film featuring guns and Angelina Jolie. Where is the uniqueness? The broad appeal?

Take, for example, this NY Comic Con poster released last week.

Jame McAvoy holding two guns, a heavily tattooed Angelina holding another and little else. And the two characters aren’t even interacting any any way with one another.

Today we have another Wanted poster, via AICN, and it’s a little bit better.

This is very similar to the Angelina Jolie portion of the last poster, but now it’s in black and white, her eyes are closed and she is leaning against the gun. These little differences amount to a huge improvement. First because the more simple poster ends up resulting in a much more memorable image. Second because Jolie’s expression seems to convey some inner turmoil or at least some sort of contemplation. This adds an appealing emotional layer to the poster which makes it much more gripping.

But it’s still a very generic looking action movie image. They are going to have to do better than this.

Stuck Movie Poster

Now this is odd.

I guess a faux tabloid front page is one way to explain Stuck’s intriguing storyline. The real story which inspired it certainly seems tabloid worthy. And if it’s a good way to sell newspapers why can’t it also be a good way to sell a movie?

But I do worry about the tone. The mock tabloid style makes this seem like an over the top comedy. I haven’t seen Stuck, but from what I’ve heard it has a lot of horror and thriller elements, which are missing from the poster. And although it sometimes is darkly funny, its comedy elements aren’t as broad as this might lead one to believe.

And it is a very weird way to sell the movie. Which is good in one hand, because it makes for an attention catching image. But I think the general reaction tho the poster won’t be so much interest in seeing the movie as it will be mild puzzlement.

Then again maybe I’m exaggerating how unusual this is. Fake newspaper as posters isn’t something new. The Bank Job, for example, did this. But I think that poster seemed less invested in making itself look like a real page from a newspaper and thus was less strange than this Stuck poster.

(Via IMPAwards)

The Latest The Dark Knight Poster

There were only a couple of things I didn’t like about Batman Begins. Unfortunately the posters were one of them. Those dull, brown posters.

The Dark Knight is doing much, much better poster-wise. In part because they substituted the brown with a cool blue tone. But more importantly because they have shown tons of creativity in creating memorable, unique images that use the characters very well and expand our understanding of them.

This latest isn’t my favorite, by far, but it maintains the general high quality of the campaign. The bat sign burned into a building is pretty striking, and the associated destruction, together with the tagline, raises the stakes. The image makes the problems that Batman will face seem much more dire.

But the bat man himself doesn’t look like he is scared by that. In fact he looks more than a little pissed and totally ready to take on the bad guys.

This poster is less character centric then most of the previous ones, in large part because the burning bat sign is so attention grabbing. That is probably part of why I don’t really love it as I loved some of the others. But it is just one poster in a campaign that has had a lot of them, and I think it serves a useful purpose by giving the audience a fresh piece of marketing to chew on and by making the movie seem a little bigger and more action packed. So another job well done.

(Via IMPAwards)

The Strangers Poster

And here is more proof that subtle can work very well in horror advertisement.

There are two reasons why I like this poster. The first reason is simply how creepy it is. A normal room with Liv Tyler in the middle, looking a little worried but apparently not sure why. And then him, in the corner, in the darkness, waiting. The juxtaposition between the warm, safe room and the menacing stranger is just so unsettling, and taps into the fear that so many of us have in the back of our heads that the sanctity of our home could be broken and we might not even realize it. Until it is too late that is.

The second reason is that it does a terrific job of saying what the movie is about. Strangers invade a home, causing trouble. Simple. Clear.

Now compare this to the last poster we had seen for The Strangers. Although that poster had some interesting visual details, all it told us was that the film involved a woman going through hell. The new poster makes this a much more specific story, clearly separating this film from things like SAW and Hostel. And yes, making it look more like Funny Games, but in a way that makes The Strangers seem more accessible than that movie.

Not a brilliant poster, but I think it is a pretty good one.

Wall-E International Posters – France and Vietnam

Ok, both these international posters are based on this original, released a few months back, but add a little local spice.

First up, France shows us that it is indeed the land of love, by adding a a heart shaped constellation and a tag line that uses “L’Amour.” There are other words in there also. Although I don’t know what they mean, they are all in French so they probably say things about love, romance and croissants.

Then we have the Vietnamese poster. As it turns out the Vietnamese are a depressed people, so the whole poster has a blue tinge, making us focus more on the deep and total loneliness of the main character. Downer, dude.

Honestly now, these are small differences and I seriously doubt that we can say anything of substance based on them. I do think that the original was more perfect. The French version is a little too sugary and the blueness of the Vietnamese version make no sense to me, the original colors were really beautiful. But they are all still good.

(Via reader Casty the Clown and BadTaste.it)

The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond Posters

I thought I was pretty much over aged horror posters that mimicked posters from decades past. The concept has been used too many time since Grindhouse, sometimes with silly results. But it seems I was wrong, because here are two new aged posters for The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond and I’m really digging them.

I think it’s mostly the authenticity that got to me, both of the actual design and illustrations used and of the aging itself. It really does feel like posters for an old horror movie that have been sitting in a damp basement for too long. The fact that they don’t go for a grindhouse style, it looks like a more mainstream 80’s flick, also helps.

Of course, the films that got this type of poster were often not very good. And the sheer authenticity of the posters might very well be a turn off for modern audiences, so I’m not sure how well these will work as marketing materials. But for someone with a sweet spot for old horror movies and their posters like me these two looks great, and I’m sure at least a few people will get equally strong positive impressions.

(Via Bloody Disgusting)

The Black Waters of Echo's Pond Posters

I thought I was pretty much over aged horror posters that mimicked posters from decades past. The concept has been used too many time since Grindhouse, sometimes with silly results. But it seems I was wrong, because here are two new aged posters for The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond and I’m really digging them.

I think it’s mostly the authenticity that got to me, both of the actual design and illustrations used and of the aging itself. It really does feel like posters for an old horror movie that have been sitting in a damp basement for too long. The fact that they don’t go for a grindhouse style, it looks like a more mainstream 80’s flick, also helps.

Of course, the films that got this type of poster were often not very good. And the sheer authenticity of the posters might very well be a turn off for modern audiences, so I’m not sure how well these will work as marketing materials. But for someone with a sweet spot for old horror movies and their posters like me these two looks great, and I’m sure at least a few people will get equally strong positive impressions.

(Via Bloody Disgusting)