Movie Marketing in 2012

THE GOOD

Star Trek Into Darkness

Is Kahn in it? Who is John Harrison? What episode was he in? Why does IMDB list him as playing "Kahn (Rumored)"? Will Spock die at the end? How far will the current timeline stray from the original series?

The fact that these questions are such a hot topic among the fans right now is a testament to how good Bad Robot (J.J. Abrams' production company) are at marketing. Remember when Cloverfield didn't yet have a title? Remember when we didn't yet know the ending to Lost? That's all anyone talked about at the time. After it was done, the mystery was gone, and there was nothing else to speculate about. Abrams doesn't just make good movies, he's also the Don Draper of Hollywood.

Additionally, there is a First 9 Minutes clip being shown with some IMAX screenings of The Hobbit. This is a fairly new marketing technique used by big summer blockbusters to pad the hype surrounding it, and it has been working.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit's great accomplishment is that it made 3D no longer the latest visual 'enhancement' available to film. Whether you hate it or want to give it a chance, the new High Frame Rate technology has been putting butts in seats. From what I've heard and read, plenty of fans and critics alike have seen it more than once, whether to compare it to an alternate version of the film, or to see the first 9 minutes of something. I saw the HFR version, and will be discussing it in the near future. 

THE BAD

The Cabin in the Woods

The trailer for Cabin receives my Most Misleading Marketing award for making an extremely fun and clever horror satire look like yet another shitty clone of [your favourite slasher franchise]. The last few seconds didn't do enough to display the second tier of the story, the whole tone was just wrong, and everything else was way too generic. And that is probably why it failed financially; those who went to the theatre wanting said shitty clone of [your favourite horror franchise] were disappointed that it wasn't, and told their friends to go see Dark Shadows instead. Mostly everyone else, including myself, saw the trailer and went "No thanks".

The Grey

Why do they do this?

The trailer for The Grey was all like "Look, Liam Neeson fighting wolves! Joe 'Smokin Aces' Carhahan is directing! Actionrampagebloodberzerkerdeathmurder!"

The real movie was a slow burn, artsy drama with some modest action scenes here and there. And that shot where Liam arms himself with broken whiskey shot bottles and then decides to play chicken with White Fang? Guess what, instead of a battle, we get the ending credits. (/spoiler) It's a good movie if you're in the mood for it, which is a shame because action movie fans were the ones who complained, and you know they don't use their NPR voices much.

THE PRETTY

Cosmopolis

D-Cron, my man, what happened? Please tell me this isn't your new thing. You know what, it's okay. We all have bad days. Here, drink this coffee, have a shower, spend the day at the park. Do some yoga. Gather your thoughts, and find a story to tell. An actual story where things happen would be nice.

John Dies at the End

David Wong, the writer and fictionalized main character of John Dies, is also the senior editor at Cracked.com, which happens to be hilarious. The trailer for this movie first appeared on September 25, 2011 on both Youtube and Cracked.com, and hooked me like a harpoon to the face. But here's the thing: the trailer came way too early, evidently, because we heard nothing about John Dies for over a year after that. Then all of a sudden this happened. Magnolia, I love this movie enough to buy a Blu-ray copy of it, or even see it in the theater even though I've seen it twice now. But I guess either you don't want my money or you don't want to jump through whatever hoops you must to get it released in Canada. Oh well.