Exclusive Q&A Interview: Movie Marketing (Part 4)

Part 4 of a five-part series on the business of marketing movies. For the others: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

We are fortunate to have an insider’s take on the subject. Our expert, who prefers to remain anonymous, has worked in marketing for one of the big movie studios for 7 years, first involved with specialty /indie-films, then moving up to the studio’s major motion picture division. Today we consider the value — or not — of A-list star vs. the relative importance of a strong story concept.

Q: This summer, several movie stars had movies that under-performed at the box office (e.g., Will Ferrell, Denzel Washington, John Travolta). Meanwhile a number of pre-branded movies (Star Trek, Transformers 2, Ice Age 3, Up — because of Pixar) and strong story concept movies (District 9) did great box office. Do you see this as a trend: Studios relying less on A-list movie stars to open movies?

A: I have absolutely seen a trend in studios relying less on A-list stars to open movies. I think the general audience is growing more savvy when it comes to film. As discussed above, I think audiences today are looking for strong story concepts. They realize that an A-list name does not necessarily equal a great story, and people today want a great story…they don’t care who tells it.

Q: To zero in on this last question, if Movie A had an A-list star and Movie B had an incredible story concept, which would you prefer to take on for a marketing campaign?

A: I would absolutely rather work on a film with an incredible story concept than one with an A-list star in it. Like I said before, films with great storylines speak for themselves. When we see a film that we truly enjoy, it makes us want to work that much harder for it, because we REALLY believe in it.

There’s something I never really considered re the value of a strong story concept. I figured it would make it easier to market. I figured it would make it easier for movie-goers to spread the word via word-of-mouth. But I didn’t figure that if the people who market a movie really “believe” in the film, they work “that much harder for it.” May not seem like that big of a deal, but consider that a screenwriter receives quarterly residual checks for their entire lifetime from every movie they write that gets released. So if the enthusiastic marketing of a movie results in the film doing even 10% more business than it might have, that can translate into significantly more income for the writer over their lifetime.

So a movie with a strong story concept can not only be easier to market, but also get folks pumped about spreading the word.

And then there are movies like Where the Wild Things Are. It’s hard not to get excited about the movie just based on the visuals as we noted here. But Warner Bros. is evidently having trouble figuring out how to market the movie per this article in The Wrap:

It’s one of the most beloved children’s books of all time, but it remains to be seen whether Warner Bros. is marketing the film version of “Where the Wild Things Are” to the right audience.

The Spike Jonze-directed film opens Friday — more than a year after its originally scheduled release date and it’s still not clear if it’s a movie for kids, adults or hip adolescents.

At times the studios seems to be taking contradictory tacks. A “First Look” on-screen advertising featurette that’s been playing in AMC theaters portrays “Wild Things” as a film adults will love — filled with grown-up themes of rage, pain, sadness.

Meanwhile merchandising for the film showed up a month ago in places like Urban Outfitters, a retailer known for its hip, young sensibility. It included graphic T-shirts for men and women, along with the original book and a new movie tie-in version which are reportedly selling well.

But the trailer, which at times followed the “First Look” featurette on the very same screen, sells the film as a cuddly children’s tale with fun, furry creatures.

Who’s the movie for?

I think it was my first agents who said before writing a script, a screenwriter had to ask this question: “Who’s your audience?” Their point was that we had to know the specific target demo we were aiming for with our story. It reminds me of one screenwriter I know who will actually go through magazines and clip out a photo of a person who he thinks represents the target audience for the current script he’s working on and tack that photo up in his work space to remind him while he writes.

Basic stuff, right? And yet here is Warner Bros. with a movie that they still haven’t decided who the audience is.

I think this is a case where they mistook this — “It’s a movie based on a beloved Maurice Sendak children’s book” — to be the actual story concept, as opposed to the… you know, actual story concept. And there may lie the rub — because early reviews have noted that there doesn’t seem to be much a story in the movie. Here is what Todd McCarthy had to say as an intro to his review in the Daily Variety:

Fleet of foot, emotionally attuned to its subject and instinctively faithful to its celebrated source, “Where the Wild Things Are” earns a lot of points for its hand-crafted look and unhomogenized, dare-one-say organic rendering of unrestrained youthful imagination. But director Spike Jonze’s sharp instincts and vibrant visual style can’t quite compensate for the lack of narrative eventfulness that increasingly bogs down this bright-minded picture. Widespread curiosity about the cinematic fate of Maurice Sendak’s childhood perennial looks to spur sizable if not stellar commercial results in all markets, including on Imax screens.

Warner Bros. is pitching the visuals. Pitching the “beloved Sendak book” angle. But apart from a few lines from the book — “Let the wild rumpus begin!” — none of the trailers I’ve seen convey much of anything about the actual story.

We’ll know soon how the movie does as it opens this weekend.

Tomorrow is the last in our series on movie marketing, touching on several subject areas including why trailers give away the entire plot of the movies they’re promoting.

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