Extinction – Marketing Recap

New to Netflix this week is the science fiction action drama Extinction. The movie stars Michael Pena as Peter and Lizzy Caplan as his wife Alice. She’s been very understanding recently as he has a series of episodes where he insists he sees mass carnage and destruction but can’t put a finger on what’s causing these visions or what they mean.

Their life – as well as the lives of everyone on the planet – are thrown into disarray when what appears to be an invading alien force arrives on Earth and begins wiping out the human population. Alice and Peter have to lead their daughter and others to whatever safety might exist, a goal that Peter may be uniquely suited to achieve.

The Posters

A small girl stands all by herself on an abandoned city street on the movie’s poster. Shown in the sky is an alien ship descending toward the ground which, when combined with the “We were not here first” copy, makes it clear we’re dealing with an alien invasion story of some sort.

The Trailers

Peter is a good guy who works hard for his family in the trailer but as we see he has recurring visions of destruction and violence he can’t shake and can’t explain. He’s convinced something bad is coming but no one believes him until they actually start coming. At that point he finds he can use his memories of those visions to help his family survive, navigating the worst parts of what’s happening by remembering what he’s already seen.

It’s a decent spot, though I call foul on the underuse of both Pena and Caplan. They both seem to turn in fine performances – they’re incapable of doing otherwise – but are also capable of much more than this.

Online and Social

I don’t see any official web or social presence for the movie.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

No advertising has been done that I’ve seen or am aware of. Netflix will occasionally run retargeted ads, though, and the company has offered at least a couple prompts for me to add it to my list, either through email or when I’m logged into the site.

Media and Publicity

While the movie had sort of been floating in the background for a while the news Netflix had picked it up from Universal, who had recently pulled it from their release schedule, got lots of people talking. That’s largely because it came just days after the whole Cloverfield Paradox surprise release, so the narrative of Netflix purchasing difficult sci-fi movies was ripe in everyone’s mind.

Overall

Here’s hoping there’s more to the movie than what’s on display in the campaign. It’s fine and looks like a perfectly decent mid-tier science fiction movie, which is why Universal abandoned it (no singularly identifiable hook) and Netflix picked it up. It’s likely made its way into the lists of quite a few subscribers, who will eventually check it out while doing other things.

PICKING UP THE SPARE

Star Michael Pena stopped by “Colbert” but only got a plug for the movie in briefly at the end of the interview.