And it bombed.
I hate when that happens. It happened with Bridge to Terabithia, and It's happening right now with John Carter.
This film is based on a novel called Princess of Mars. You can't have a movie called Princess of Mars if you want to attract boys, so out goes the princess. You can't have a movie about Mars if you want to attract girls, so out goes the Mars. And now we have a movie named after some frat guy I dated in college.
That's okay, because the trailer that features all the awesome special effects will reel them in. Look! We have gigantic monsters! We have cool battle scenes between vague enemies! A hot girl with interesting posture!
I asked my kids if they want to see it. They think it looks stupid, and these are kids who think Saw sequels and Transformers are the best films ever made.
If you haven't seen it, here's the original trailer:
What the hell is that movie about? Did he travel in time? Is he in some crazy fantasy land? Is he in Victorian England? What movie are we watching here? My first thought on seeing this trailer: "That looks expensive, whatever that is."
Unless you're Transformers, you can't just throw pretty pictures in a trailer and expect people to flock to it. As much as we bitch about modern audiences not having any taste, they still want to watch a good story unfold.
So take Project X. My students all want to see it. "But there's no plot!" you say. Ah, but they know exactly what that movie is. The trailer shows debauchery, and they'll go into the theater expecting exactly that. But John Carter looks like it wants to be about something. No kid wants to go see a movie that tries and fails at being a story.
And have you seen the billboard?
From the distance of my car it looks like a movie about two gorillas. I almost crashed trying to figure out what was that tiny thing in front of them. Oh, it's the protagonist.
What the hell is this movie about?
And then I saw the fan-made trailer. Have you seen it? Take a look:
Oh, this movie has a plot! And it looks kind of like Star Wars! I might like it!
I know I'm not alone in this, obviously, but it's really bugging me. If people don't know what movie they're going to watch, they will hate it. If you try to trick them, it will backfire. This film is getting high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (77% as of this posting) and it's directed by the great Andrew Stanton. After seeing this fan trailer, I actually want to see it. But they're shooting themselves in the foot with the ad campaign. Instead of trying to hide bits that might alienate certain demographics, hence alienating ALL demographics, let the movie speak for itself. People are not as stupid as we make them out to be. If a movie looks good, they will flock to see it.
I'm not an ad person, but I am a person who will go to see movies based on an awesome trailer, and I do have my own little market research pod in my classroom. And my research in this capacity has proven time and time again that a good, solid trailer will bring the kids in every time, but only if they know what they're getting.
