Movie House to Blame for Failure?

The Golden Compass was a gigantic flop in the United States. The film only brought in $70 million in the states, which didn't even cover half of the $180 million production budget, according to an article written by Ed Perkis for Cinemablend.com. Contrary to the poor numbers states-side, the film did incredibly well in other countries, expected to "gross as much as $400 million worldwide." 

Perkis believes that the reason the film did so poorly in the U.S. but so well elsewhere is not because of the horrible critical reviews or America's "Puritanical reaction to the anti-religious mania of the movie", but because of which movie house distributed the film.

"New Line sold off foreign rights during the production phase and the foreign distributors did a better job marketing the film and keeping it in theaters. Even in heavy Catholic countries, like Italy, the movie did fairly well because it was pushed as a family film rather than a Lord of the Rings style fantasy adventure. It also played longer despite a slow start."

When marketing a film, it is important to cater to your audience and tailor your marketing plan to fit each individual area. Without doing so, a great film can fail miserably.

New Advances in DVD Marketing

Paramount Pictures is the first of many movie houses to use the extensive reach of Facebook to market new films or new release DVDs. The New Zealand Herald recently wrote an article announcing that Paramount will make "thousands of movie clips available to Facebook users." 

"Silicon Valley developer FanRocket will launch an application called VooZoo that will go live Monday [March 17th]."

When a clip of a Paramount film is viewed, which can range from a few seconds long to several minutes in length, a button will appear that will make DVD purchase quick and easy. "Associated Press reports that Paramount parent Viacom is working with viral video specialist FanRocket to come up with a clever game plan to promote the next Indiana Jones installment Kingdom of the Crystal Skull before it uploads clips from previous titles."

"Viacom, Paramount Pictures parent company, has previously been very active in keeping its movie clips on video sharing sites like YouTube."

With new media channels, like Facebook, the face of movie marketing is drastically changing. It is a very real possibility that in a few years, the majority of movie trailers may be debuted on Facebook instead of in theaters. Who knows what this will mean for the future of Hollywood.

Great Year for Hollywood

Scott Bowles writes for USA Today that Hollywood made more money in  2007 than in any year ever before, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. MPAA chief Dan Glickman says that studios across the United States and Canada brought in $9.6 billion last year alone. 

"While the figure is $300 million more than any other year, rising ticket prices — the average cost was $6.88 a ticket — meant attendance has remained relatively unchanged over the past three years. Roughly 1.4 billion million tickets were sold in 2007, well below the record 1.6 billion sold in 2002."

Although ticket sales were well below average in recent years, Glickman is confident in the success of Hollywood in 2007 with the rising competition from the internet and the home video phenomenon.

"Meanwhile, studios are spending more than ever to lure audiences. The average Hollywood film cost $106.6 million to produce and market, about $6 million more than 2006." With studios spending millions more on marketing films each year, why is it that the ticket sales are declining? This could be attributed to the fact that as production and marketing prices increase, so does the cost of each individual ticket, with some movies costing upwards of $15 in major markets. 

Maybe a solution to this problem would be to spend less on marketing and thus, charge less for admission. As crazy as this sounds, it just might work.

19 Years Later and He's Still Got It!

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," Harrison Ford's latest Indy-flick has done something that every major film wishes to accomplish: create huge buzz way before the movie hits theaters. Paramount Pictures achieved this goal by premiering the trailer for the film February 14th on "Good Morning America," according to an article from The Associated Press. The studio "estimates that the trailer was seen more than 200 million times worldwide in the first week alone." Riding this wave, Paramount Pictures decided to launch an "aggressive online campaign, which included what Paramount says is a record 4.1 million views on the Yahoo movie site in the first week and 2.6 million on the official IndianaJones.com site, the most ever for the studio." 

Harry Knowles, "Head Geek" of AnitItCool.com, says that "people generally really, really loved the trailer. Some people think it's a little more cartoonish-looking compared to the prior films, with him whipping the lights and swinging on them from stuff. But at the time, it seems that everyone is extremely excited that there's a new 'Indiana Jones' film. The excitement for it is palpable. It's much more aggressively anticipated than anything else that's coming out right now."

Gerry Rich, president of Paramount's worldwide marketing says "the trailer caught on like wildfire, around the world, in all mediums, [targeting moviegoers] from 8 to 80." By releasing a high-impact, exciting, unexpected trailer, Paramount Pictures has created sufficient hype for the newest Ford film.

Maybe it's the star-studded cast, maybe it's the release date, maybe it's the combination of Lucas and Speilberg; whatever it is, 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' is bound to be a huge success.

Facebook Enters the Movie Business

Universal Pictures has decided to take movie marketing in a new director for its latest horror film "Untraceable." In the movie, a serial killer has a website that cannot be traced by law enforcement officials. On the website, the killer performs violent and graphic murders live, for the entire internet to view.

In an interesting new approach to marketing, Universal Pictures teamed up with Facebook to create a "Kill With Me" page where the number of fans that visit the page determines how much of the graphic footage from the film will be shown.  According to an article posted on UTalkMarketing.com, "[this tactic] was accompanied by a Facebook-only banner campaign, warning visitors not to visit the page in question ." 

"Facebook has since removed the page explaining in a statement to Universal that it contravened their policy not to allow pages that are 'hateful, threatening, or obscene.'” Also, the banners have been altered so that when clicked, they redirect the viewer to a different website with the torture scenes available for viewing."If the site receives over 10,000 visits before ‘Untraceable’s UK release on Friday, February 29 it will be updated to show the entire first 10 minutes of the film."

Movie marketing has changed incredibly over the last few years, aiming to become more tech-savvy and more easily accessible to movie lovers. Sometimes, as is the case with "Untraceable", the studios take the marketing a step too far. Although it was a great marketing idea to create an interactive website that relates directly to the film, many people, including the regulators of Facebook, found it offensive and inappropriate. 

Does the early bird get the Oscar?

Sunday was the biggest night in hollywood. The Oscars are notorious for being extremely long and saving the best award for last, The Best Picture. 

This year, "No Country For Old Men" not only won best picture, but it also won best best director, best screenplay, and best performance by a supporting actor (Javier Bardem). According to Martin Grove's recent article in The Hollywood Reporter, "No Country For Old Men" won Best Picture because of the remarkable marketing campaign that Miramax implemented in order to promote the film. Grove says that the "campaign started way back before the film opened in limited release last Nov. 9. If anything, "No Country's" win should be a signal to Oscar marketers that campaigning early makes all the sense in the world -- as long as you have a picture that delivers the goods the way "No Country" does."

The article also says that delaying the release of an Oscar contender only causes more problems for the movie because it doesn't give the Academy members enough time to view the films before they leave for winter vacations. So even though some studios might not want to release a movie too soon before the Oscars race in order to keep up the suspence, in the long run it actually helps the movie because if the film is Oscar-worthy, then there is no use in keeping it a secret. 

Paris Hilton Talented? Really?

You would be lying to yourself if you said you had never heard of the one and only Miss Paris Hilton. You would not, on the other hand, be remiss if you were unable to say why exactly she is famous. I`m sure if you asked her, or any Paris-wannabe out there, they would say she's a singer, a runway model, a print model, and, most notably of late, an actress. The 'renaissance woman's' newest project is "The Hottie and The Nottie", a romantic comedy about a young man that tries to woo the love of his life, only to find that he begins to fall in love with her ugly, always-at-her-side best friend. If that doesn't just scream out Best Picture, I don't know what does. 

Eonline!.com's Jefferson Reid posted an article that attempts to answer the question "did Paris' high profile doom the film?" The article quotes Christine Lakin, 'the nottie', about the marketing techniques used in order to reach a large market. Lakin says that "with any project you take, you can't think about reviews and you can't think about the way a studio is going to market a film. I have no control over that. At the end of the day, people either love or hate Paris Hilton, and they will either want to go see the movie or they don’t."

Lakin also says that the film was "marketed as a vanity piece that’s not what you think it is, you think it’s going to be one big music video, and it's not at all. The thing that’s hard about it is I think [Paris] actually does a really nice job. She’s much more relaxed and real then you have ever seen her onscreen. It's very endearing. It's kinda how she is in real life behind the scenes."

So did Paris Hilton's love-her-or-hate-her-reputation cause the demise of her own film? It's quite possible. It is always a risk to bank on your star being the major selling point of a film. With actors like Brad Pitt and George Clooney, you can almost guarantee that their faces on the posters will bring in some highly-desired film-goers, but with a no-talent, good-for-nothing socialite like Paris Hilton, it's a real gamble. I guess that's what the studio gets for putting all it's eggs in one basket.