Yet Another War Movie

I know I`m not alone when I say that I am just about sick of seeing movie after movie on the war in Iraq. The most recent of which, "Stop-Loss", bombed in theaters, following suit with similar films that had come before it. 

Lionsgate, the distributor of "The Lucky Ones", a movie about three soldiers back from duty that take a road trip across the country and discover themselves and each other along the way, is struggling with the marketing of this project. The film, according to an article written by David Halbfinger for The New York Times, is a serious film with comedic undertones and an uplifting message. 

The cast and crew are getting antsy because the release date has been pushed back three times so far, with the next tentative release date of October 24th. The studio is worried that people will associate this film with the other war movies that have done outstandingly poor in theaters, but the filmmakers would like to point out that the word "Iraq" is never once mentioned in the film (as if that changes the fact that its about the war).

Marketing any type of film is an exceptionally hard thing to master, but that task becomes even more daunting when the genre is not generally accepted, at least at this time. Lionsgate has the opportunity to market the film as a light hearted, uplifting comedy and completely leave out the part about it being a war film, but that would be misleading to all moviegoers. Essentially, the studio just has to bite the bullet and proceed with the marketing campaign as if Iraq-based movies were popular in the United States right now.