How Sony Pictures is selling a story of capitalism as activism
Dumb Money movie poster from Sony Pictures
Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum wrote and Craig Gillespie directed this week’s new release from Sony Pictures, Dumb Money. Despite the title sounding like a Rodney Dangerfield vehicle from 1987, the movie is actually a fictionalized version of real life events from just a few years ago. Specifically, the brief moment when a group of amateurs bought a bunch of stock in retailer GameStop to essentially bet against Wall Street, which was largely writing the company off.
Paul Dano plays Keith Gill, an investor who started posting on a subreddit thread about how GameStop stock was undervalued and encouraged others to take a look at the stock. When masses of others begin buying shares the price went up, angering managers of hedge funds who had shorted the stock and who were, because of the price increase, now on the hook for payments. Eventually the powers that be, including at some stock trading apps, shut this groundswell down to protect the bigger players.
America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Seth Rogen, Vincent D’Onofrio and others play the people who are either rooting for Gill and others or actively working against him to maintain the status quo.
Let’s look at how the marketing campaign has played out.
announcements and casting
MGM greenlit a movie based on what at the time was a book proposal from Ben Mezrich in early 2021, before the ink on the real-time coverage of the event was dry. At the time the movie was intended to have the same title as that book, “The Antisocial Network.”
Rogen, Dano and others were cast in the film in September, 2022, around the same time MGM dropped the project, now sporting its current title. Sony eventually acquired distribution rights in mid-October of that year.
Additional casting was announced at that time as well, including Anthony Ramos, Shailene Woodley and more.
the marketing campaign
Sony brought footage from the movie to CinemaCon in April to show exhibitors what they could expect.
The first red-band trailer (10m YouTube plays) was released in June. It opens with Gill being shocked at the amount of money suddenly in play while professional analysts and others are gobsmacked at not being in control of everything for like five minutes. Flash back to all this started several months earlier and we see Gill created a movement among his social media and video followers who saw an opportunity to not only make some money themselves but also send a message to the power brokers that they weren’t the only ones in charge. Of course Big Wall Street pushes back on that challenge, leading to some general disillusionment with the very very rigged system.
In July news came the movie’s premiere was scheduled for September’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Dumb Money movie teaser poster from Sony Pictures
The first poster, which shows a massive middle finger made out of stacks of money, came out in July as well.
Sony had originally planned to give the film a single wide release date but in August changed that to a phased rollout that began on 9/15 in Los Angeles, expanded a bit more last week, will be in more theaters this weekend and then finally hit “wide” release status on 10/6.
The first short vignette featuring comments from Rogen, Ferrera and others came out in early September as they recap the real story amidst footage from the movie itself.
Rotten Tomatoes debuted an exclusive TV spot that mostly featured footage already seen in the trailer.
The TIFF premiere was very well-received by audiences there, though it lacked the usual pageantry because the stars were absent due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. Shuker Blum and Angelo were there, though, as they are executive producers on the movie and talked briefly about its underdog story.
A theatrical poster was released in August, this one showing the cast arrayed at the bottom in front of a group of protesters. Copy at the top makes it clear this is based on a true story about fighting the power of Wall Street.
They and Gillespie were interviewed about how the project got started, including the personal connection the director had to events and how they were following developments in the news, eventually deciding there was an incredible story to tell here.
Another featurette focuses on Rogen explaining how his character is a “normal guy” who has bet against GameStop and sees his very comfortable perch become a lot more shaky as Gill and others undermine his work. Dano does a similar thing in his own featurette.
The writers took part in a Reddit AMA, an interesting tactic given shutting down the original subreddit was one of the ways Wall Street sought to take control of the situation back.
As the film was beginning its controlled release one more poster came out, this one grouping the characters into “The Top 1%” who think “…You’re Dumb”, with the latter group in the bottom segment of the design.
overall
This is a very interesting campaign. If you ask me (and why else are you here?) it leans too heavily on making the power brokers of hedge funds and other professionals a bit too sympathetic for a true “stick it to the man” story. And there’s almost nothing in the trailer or other spots about just how powerfully those entrenched interests sought to quash what they viewed as a rebellion among the peasants who threatened their right to take it all.
How well you react to the marketing Sony has put together, which has also been impacted by the dual strikes in Hollywood over the last few months, likely hinges on how much you enjoy ripped-from-the-headlines stories.
One final note: Apparently Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss – yes, *those* two – are producers on the movie, a hilarious point given the two have never met a tech investment they couldn’t ultimately fail at over the years.
How Universal Pictures has sold a stoner canine comedy
Strays movie poster from Universal Pictures
Dan Perrault wrote and Josh Greenbaum directed this week’s talking-animal feature film Strays, exclusively in theaters.
The movie stars Will Ferrell as the voice of Reggie, a Boston Terrier who’s abandoned by his self-absorbed human to fend for himself. Lacking street smarts or survival skills of any kind, Reggie is helped by his fellow strays Bug (Jamie Foxx), Maggie (Isla Fisher) and Hunter (Randall Park) along with plenty of other animals they encounter as Reggie tries to get back home in one piece.
It’s a pretty standard premise, with the primary selling point being the all-star voice cast, so let’s take a look at the marketing campaign Universal Pictures has mounted for this R-rated comedy.
announcement and casting
The movie was effectively announced in early December 2021 as Greenbaum’s Barb and Star follow-up. Forte, Ferrell and Foxx were revealed as the stars at that time, with Park joining in March of the next year. In between that Universal set a June 2023 release date. Fisher joined a bit later.
the marketing campaign
The debut of the first trailer (1.7m YouTube plays) in early February marked the beginning of the marketing push. It opens by showing how much Reggie loves Doug despite Doug clearly hating the dog. So when he’s abandoned in the big city he bumps into the other canines, who help give him a taste of the real world. There are lots of hijinks, of course, as it becomes clear this is *not* an all-ages heart-wrenching story but is all about dogs getting drunk and so on.
That message is reinforced on the poster that accompanied it. Reggie is shown partially out of frame because the focus is on his tag, which has the movie’s R rating clearly displayed along with the reasons for that rating, an attempt to warn off anyone who might consider bringing young kids to the cute talking dogs movie.
A version of the trailer with the swear words bleeped out came out a month later.
4/20 was marked on the movie’s social media accounts with plenty of memes, drug references and more, partly because it’s thematically appropriate and partly because there was some time to kill before the campaign kicked back up.
Later that month Ferrell appeared on stage with Sophie, the dog that plays Reggie, at Universal’s CinemaCon presentation to talk about how funny the movie is and more. The studio also held a handful of advance screenings on college campuses and elsewhere to try and build up some word of mouth.
Reggie is joined by Bug on the next poster, with Bug holding the rating card in his mouth on this one.
TV spots and online promos like this one began running in earnest in early June, most all of them just using cutdowns from the trailer.
Universal added an old-school side-scrolling game to the movie’s official website letting you play as the various dogs as they jump over obstacles, hump things they come across and more as they journey to bite Doug’s junk off.
The site also had information on promotional partners, including:
Tito’s Vodka, which created a few movie-inspired cocktail recipes and ran a sweepstakes on Instagram tied to the company’s own dog-related charity.
Paw:20, which ran a sweepstakes awarding movie tickets to the winners.
An AI-powered mobile app sells itself as being able to translate your dog’s barking but really it’s just a bunch of movie-esque smack talk.
Another short trailer came out toward the end of July, the primary element here being to introduce Dennis Quaid as himself.
The stars again reinforce how this is *not* for kids in a featurette where they talk about the story, their characters and more.
We’re introduced a bit more to the main characters in a series of videos focused on Reggie, Bug and the others.
overall
I mean…you know what you’re getting within 15 seconds of any given trailer, and the posters and other assets make it clear just what kind of movie this is. So you certainly can’t say the studio isn’t being upfront about it.
While the campaign is good enough and certainly remains on brand for what it’s selling, the fact that projections have it opening to just about $15 million says a lot about the continued problems with finding an audience for R-rated comedy. With this cast the pitch should have been that much easier.
picking up the spare
Greenbaum was interviewed about the movie’s influences and the fun he had creating the story with Lord and Miller. He also spoke along with the film’s animal trainer on the challenges of working with the dogs.
How Netflix has sold its Russo Brothers-affiliated action sequel
Extraction 2 movie poster from Netflix
Chris Hemsworth returns as former special forces turned mercenary Tyler Rake in Extraction 2, the sequel to the 2020 original and based on the graphic novel Ciudad by Ande Parks. Like the first movie, Rake has been hired to protect/rescue someone important but this time instead of the son of a drug kingpin it’s the family of a Georgian underworld figure that needs to be extracted from the prison they’re being held in.
If the plot sounds paper thin, it is. The Netflix-original feature, like the first installment, is directed by Sam Hargrave and written by Joe Russo, who produced with his brother Anthony among others. It’s simply an excuse to create lots of firefights and chase sequences with Hemsworth in the middle of the action.
Let’s take a look at how the marketing campaign has been run.
announcement and casting
A sequel had been “soft” announced after the first one was a big success on Netflix and officially moved into production a while later.
Things started off very early when a teaser trailer was released in September, 2021 during Netflix’s TUDUM fan event. The first half of that teaser is just the end of the last movie, eventually leading up to a bit of new footage showing #RakeLives and that this second film was coming some time in 2022.
The Russos released a short video of Hemsworth on set in December to mark the beginning of filming, around the same time Netflix shared a photo.
During its’ annual TUDUM event in September 2022 a behind-the-scenes first look video was released to assure audiences the movie was still coming out.
Hemsworth spoke about the movie briefly on “Kimmel” in October while promoting other projects.
In January, footage from the movie was included in Netflix’s 2023 sizzle reel of original movies coming out this year, bringing with it a new official release date.
the marketing campaign
To get things started at the beginning of April, Netflix pasted “Tyler Rake Lives” messages across buildings and billboards in major cities, apparently working on the assumption anyone remembered who Tyler Rake was or that he was in any way connected to a movie.
Those messages preceded the release of another teaser trailer (11m YouTube plays). It uses Rake’s rescue of a woman from a prison riot as the centerpiece while also flashing back to the end of the last movie to show us how he survived.
The scene used in that teaser is one shot and the idea of an extended sequence is reinforced on a batch of posters released in mid-May that came with the message all the images were taken from that sequence.
3 posters, all from a single unrelenting oner that clocks in at over 🚨 21 minutes 🚨
Right after that the official trailer (10.7m YouTube plays) came out, opening again with someone reminding Tyler he was clinically dead following the events of the first movie. After that it’s almost all action as we see him race through one scene after another to keep the family he’s been hired to protect safe.
An extended commercial released in early June shows more of the action and reveals Idris Elba had come aboard in an undisclosed role.
The Extraction team is expanding! Idris Elba joins Chris Hemsworth, Golshifteh Farahani and Adam Bessa in Extraction 2, premiering June 16. pic.twitter.com/KWq2u35gnt
More posters showed Tyler along with Nik and Yaz, two members of his team.
Hemsworth himself shared a clip from the movie showing Tyler pulling out a very large machine gun to take down a helicopter that’s pursuing him and his charges.
He also posted a video from the press tour stop in Madrid, Spain that came just before the New York City red carpet where he and the rest of the cast and crew were in attendance.
A really convoluted digital billboard in New York City’s Times Square has a helicopter flying in and lifting up a billboard reading “Chris Hemsworth extract me please” before flying away, but aside from the Netflix logo it’s unclear if there’s any actual movie branding included in the ad.
How the story for this film was generated and how he and the others were challenged to go even bigger than they had previously were covered in an interview with Hargrave, including the process of shooting that single-shot sequence.
Hemsworth was also interviewed a few times and appeared on “GMA” and elsewhere to talk about the movie, especially that keystone sequence.
overall
It’s true that Chris Hemsworth is good in action films.
So it’s a little disappointing when a campaign, much less the movie it’s supporting, doesn’t give him much chance to show off the latter more frequently.
Instead the focus has been on two elements:
Tyler Rake’s return, but as stated above that supposes anyone outside of hardcore fans of the first movie remember that to be the character’s name, especially since character development wasn’t a major part of the story
That single shot sequence, which is no doubt a technical achievement but given it comes loaded with the same sort of choppy action and movement the Russos and their collaborators have been producing since about 2015 it’s not as impressive as it’s made out to be.
The campaign should appeal to anyone who enjoyed the first film, a group I’m part of for the most part, but it remains to be seen if the sequel comes close to being the breakout hit the original was or if that success was fueled as much by everyone suddenly being home in early 2020 and needing something to watch as it was by the movie itself.
There were also more interviews with Hargrave about the extended action sequence along with a look at the billboards Netflix placed to advertise the movie.
How Paramount has sold a beastly franchise continuation
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts movie poster from Paramount Pictures
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, directed by Steven Caple Jr. and written by (among others) Joby Harold, arrives in theaters this weekend as the seventh installment of Paramount’s Transformers film series.
The story is set in the 1990s, placing it chronologically between 2018’s Bumblebee and 2005’s Transformers. This time around the Autobots are on the hunt for an ancient device for the Transwarp Key, which can open portals across space and time. That device is being sought by Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo), a massive transformer that devours planets. Protecting the Key are the Maximals, an ancient race of Transformer that because of the planet they lived on change into animals like gorillas, falcons and so on as opposed to vehicles and other items. The Maximals, now on Earth, are aided by the Autobots as they seek to protect the planet and its people.
Dominique Fishback and Anthony Ramos play two of those humans that aid the Autobots in finding the Transwarp Key and keeping it safe. Peter Cullen returns yet again to provide the voice of Optimus Prime while Pete Davidson and Ron Perlman join as the voices of Mirage and Optimus Primal, respectively. Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Liza Koshy and others are also here as the voices of various heroes and villains, so with all that set up let’s take a look at how it’s been sold to the audience.
announcements and casting
In January of 2020 it was reported Paramount had not one but two Transformers projects in the works, either to see which wound up being the best idea or to get two bites at the apple.
One of those became this movie, with detailsannounced in June 2021 during a virtual press event with the cast and crew.
The battle on Earth is no longer just between Autobots and Decepticons… Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons join Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, in theatres June 24, 2022. pic.twitter.com/VtS4CjSxLy
Ramos Fishback were cast in the lead human roles in early 2021, followed by the news Perlman was voicing Optimus Primal just as he’d one of the animated series a few years ago. Other voice actors with prior experience in one or more Transformers projects also returned for this iteration of their characters.
Late in 2021 Paramount moved the movie’s release date a whole year, from mid-2022 to mid-2023.
Yeoh and Davidson were cast in October of that year.
In March 2022 the studio revealed this movie was the first of three planned Transformers projects, with a Nickelodeon animated series coming later this year and a new animated feature arriving in 2024.
the marketing campaign: phase one
The first trailer (34.5m YouTube plays) arrived in December of 2022, kicking off the main part of the marketing campaign. It’s short on story details beyond hinting at a major threat facing the heroic Autobots and Maximals and is mainly designed to show off the look of the characters and the action they engage in on screen.
“Power if primal” we’re told on the poster that accompanied it, with the Autobot symbol carved into a stone wall that’s been scratched by massive claws, hinting at the kind of violence and action we’re in store for.
Optimus Prime made an AR appearance during an NFL broadcast later in December.
Paramount and Porsche aired a co-branded TV spot aired during the Super Bowl. The spot makes sense given the character of Mirage, voiced by Pete Davidson, is a Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.8 and was the first in a series of promotions from the car company.
In a *very* weird moment that says more about the power of corporate synergy to influence reality, Optimus Prime – the character, not Peter Cullen who gives him voice – was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the “Kids Choice Awards” in March, with the award introduced by Ramos, Fishback and Davidson.
Porsche was involved again, this time hosting a panel of the movie’s cast, director and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura at SXSW. Also at SXSW were massive statues of Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal along with a replica of Mirage. An AR app worked with those statues to unlock digital content as well.
Prime, Primal and Mirage are featured on the next three posters released.
The massive statues from SXSW were taken on tour to select cities across the U.S. and other countries through early August, so likely into the movie’s home video window as well as theatrical release.
Prime and Primal popped out of the hardwood in a live mixed-reality promo that aired during one of the NCAA Final Four games.
The studio took advantage of rapper Tobe Nwigwe playing one of the human allies of the Autobots and included a promo for the movie in his performance at Coachella in April.
An interview with Caple Jr. and Bonaventura confirmed that the Terrorcons and Predacons were the antagonists in the story, though they kept from offering too many details along with new photos of Ramos and Fishback from the film.
Shortly after that another series of character posters was devoted to the villains.
A new trailer was released at the end of April that opens with a bit more of the Maximal’s backstory, including being hidden on Earth for centuries before showing a much better look at Unicron than previously seen. It goes on to offer a few more story points before ending with the heroes jointly taking on a swarm of Terrorcons.
All the main Autobots and Maximals are assembled on the theatrical poster that came out at the same time, with Unicron looming in the background of the jungle everyone is standing above.
Fishback and Ramos were on stage to promote the movie during Paramount’s CinemaCon presentation and were both given the Rising Stars of the Year Award, an event that just happened to coincide with the Statues Tour arriving in Las Vegas.
Prime and Primal are having a staring contest on the next poster, with that pose working with the “Unite or fall” copy to make it clear these two factions are at odds, at least at first.
Porsche ran a contest involving the AR app to award a trip for two to the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles.
More promos for the movie were run during broadcasts of “The Challenge” on Paramount Plus, DAZN Boxing and elsewhere.
Along those same lines, the first clip from the movie was aired during the MTV Movie & TV Awards and shows the moment Prime and Primal first meet each other.
Another set of character posters shows each of the main heroes standing bravely in the background while in the foreground their vehicle/animal form is engaged in a fight.
For TikTok, a text-to-speech tool featuring Cullen’s voice as Prime came out along with a filter that put a Transformers-like helm on your cat or dog.
Some of the new robots in disguise along with the humans behind them were shown off in a “meet the cast” featurette.
In an extended profile, Caple Jr. talked about why he took on this project, the support he got from Michael Bay and how he wanted the characters and story to generate emotions in the audience and not just be there in service of spectacle.
There had been plenty of short promos and such ever since the first trailer but the first legit TV spot came out in mid-May, showing the epic scale of the threat the heroes face but never actually identifying that threat. A later spot has the cast in what seems like a PSA warning you of the signs your car may be a robot in disguise.
Tobe Nwigwe’s original song “On My Soul” with Nas came out around that time, as well.
How Noah Diaz accidentally gets in the middle of a giant robot battle is shown in the next clip, which also more fully introduces Mirage. Another clip later on would expand on that to show Noah meeting the rest of the Autobots.
Everyone was in attendance at the world premiere of the movie in Singapore at the end of May, the kickoff to the global press tour that would continue to Mexico City and other locations, including New York City’s red carpet U.S. premiere, before ending in London.
The campaign then ended just a few days ago with the release of new character posters for Noah Diaz and Elena Wallace along with a final trailer that recaps a lot of what we’ve seen before but includes Nwigwe’s song along with quotes from some of the very positive reviews that have already come out.
overall
The $68 million projected opening weekend would be a good, if not great, start for the movie given the franchise was seen as long in the tooth before Bumblebee gave it a bit of a shot in the arm. And the early reviews and word of mouth have been largely positive, calling it a lot of fun without being bogged down in the serious if silly tone of the Michael Bay films.
A few takeaways from the campaign as a whole:
Poor Dominique Fishback, who doesn’t get much screentime in the trailers and other materials for a reason I can’t quite fathom.
At least Unicron looks like Unicron and isn’t a massive barely-visible cloud or something.
That being said, at no point in the marketing did the studio post a photo of that character with the caption “When the Unicron Variant is coming for you” or something similar and that’s just disappointing.
There’s a strong focus on youth culture here, which isn’t surprising but which you can clearly see in appeals and promos made directly at music – especially involving Nwigwe – and sports events/broadcasts.
Clearly the studio feels Pete Davidson’s involvement is a major appeal to the audience, especially the aforementioned youths, as he and his cinematic alter ego are all over the place. The downside of that is if your tolerance for Davidson is on the low side, this will turn you off pretty quickly.
picking up the spare
Boston Dynamics released a cross-promotional spot that used some of those massive replicas that toured the country. Composer Jongnic Bontemps was interviewed about creating the score for the film.
How Sony has sold the latest (albeit different) Spider-Man movie
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse movie poster from Sony Pictures
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse arrives in theaters this week with a lot of anticipation on a number of fronts.
First there’s the excitement of fans, who loved the first movie in 2018, especially for its varied and inventive animation styles, the emotional story it contained and the performances of its voice cast.
Second, there’s the anticipation of the movie industry itself, which has seen a number of big franchise films fall relatively flat at the box office in the last several months, leading to a significant amount of hand-wringing over whether the strategy that’s guided Hollywood and exhibitors for the last 15 years may be fading.
This movie picks up a year after the events of the original and finds Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) approached by Gwen Stacy/Spider Woman (Hailee Steinfeld) to help stop The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a villain who can travel through dimensions using the portals his body is covered with. To do so they’ll also need the help of The Spider Society, a group made up of Spider People from across the multiverse, meaning just about every iteration of Spider-Man shows up at some point or another.
Brian Tyree Henry, Issa Rae, Jake Johnson, Amandla Stenberg, Oscar Isaac, Daniel Kaluuya and a host of others provide the voices for some of those and other supporting characters. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and David Callaham wrote the screenplay and Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson directed the film, so let’s take a look at how Sony has sold it to the summer movie-going public.
announcements and casting
A Tweet from Sony in early October of 2019 served as the official announcement the movie was coming. It was much later, in April 2021, that a three-man directing team was announced.
A “first look” was released in December 2021 at Brazil Comic-Con. It shows Gwen making an unexpected cross-dimensional stop by Miles’ room, which is extremely embarrassing for him on multiple levels. After she gets him to come with her we see lots of animated craziness, including a brief appearance by Spider-Man 2099, that hints at what’s to come.
Lord and Miller were interviewed a short while later about the varying styles of animation the movie would feature, an ambitious undertaking available to them because of the multiple dimensions the story could travel to.
Unfortunately in April 2022 Sony announced that both this movie and the third installment were being pushed back by several months, moving this one from late 2022 to summer 2023.
A short while later Lord and Miller appeared at Sony’s 2022 CinemaCon presentation to offer updates on and footage from the movie, especially touting the size of the production crew and the number of characters that would show up. That presentation also came with the news this was “part one” of the second movie, with “part two coming later.
The villain spot was introduced in mid-June while the film was being promoted at the Annecy Animation Film Festival, along with the fact the character was being voiced by Jason Schwartzman. Kaluuya was announced as the voice of Spider-Punk in November.
In November of last year Lord and Miller talked about the varying animation styles being used in the movie and later teased where Miles and other characters are in their arcs as this second movie begins.
the marketing campaign
Sony kicked off the marketing of the movie in December, 2022 with the release of the first trailer (33.8m YouTube plays). It uses the framing device of a talk Miles is having with his mother and how much she wants him to be safe and loved in the world as he gets older to show us first a collection of scenes from the first movie and then a bit from this new one. Before it ends it establishes just how many Spider People we’re going to see and that Miles and Gwen will be butting heads with Spider-Man 2099 over the role of the hero.
After that trailer dropped Sony hosted a conversation with Lord, Miller and Steinfeld on YouTube premium where they dropped a few more hints about what fans could expect and how excited they were to share this new movie.
Miles is out in front of the collection of the others from the multiverse on the first poster, the primary purpose of which is to show off just how obscure the filmmakers got when selecting which versions of the characters to highlight.
It's how you wear the mask that matters. Miles Morales returns in the next Spider-Man movie. 🕷 Spider-Man: Across the #SpiderVerse is exclusively in theaters June 2023. pic.twitter.com/tr5wWXf2f7
— Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (@SpiderVerse) December 20, 2022
That variety was again showcased in a series of symbols teased in mid-January.
Choose your fighter. Meet the Spider-People behind these icons and more when it's time to go across the #SpiderVerse on June 2. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/uenqYv9kQQ
— Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (@SpiderVerse) January 11, 2023
More new images from the movie were revealed by Empire along with comments from both the directors and producer Amy Pascal.
In late March the studio drummed up some attention by creating Spider personas for a number of celebrities on social media such as this one for Kumail Nanjiani.
Also in March Sony announced a new short set in the world of the movies was scheduled to debut at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June. That was accompanied by the news of a new mentorship program designed to foster young talent.
April started with another new trailer (40.2m YouTube plays). It more firmly sets up The Spot as the villain of the story, which leads to Gwen introducing Miles to the Spider Society, which leads to the philosophical conflict with 2099 and Miles’ determination to defy the odds and attempt the impossible.
Gwen, Miles and 2099 were added as emojis on Twitter after the trailer came out. There was also a number you could text to “join the Spider Society” and get updates about the movie, something that was promoted to those attending Coachella via billboards and other signage. A website also let you upload a selfie and get a custom image back of your Spider-Verse self.
Some of the cast were in attendance at CinemaCon 2023, where Sony showed off footage from the movie and executives hyped it to exhibition executives and journalists.
Miles and Gwen are both featured on the next poster, with the amount of other characters in the background slimmed down to just those that will presumably be focused on in the movie. Another came out to celebrate #NationalSuperHeroDay, this one showing the action reflected in the eyes of Miles and Gwen. A more traditional super hero design is used on yet another one-sheet released at the beginning of May.
A multiverse full of Spider-People. One Miles Morales. Spider-Man: Across the #SpiderVerse swings exclusively into movie theaters June 2. pic.twitter.com/49gPLNj0tA
— Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (@SpiderVerse) May 1, 2023
A slimmed down version of the trailer was used as a TV spot debuting during a UFC match after tickets went on sale. Later there was an exclusive promo for ESPN’s “SportsCenter” with the hosts trying to outdo each other as the bigger Spider-Man fan.
Exclusive posters from IMAX, Dolby and 4DX all used some variation on Miles falling through the air as Gwen and the other Spider characters spin around him.
Additional TV commercials and pre-roll ads used more footage from the film showing not only the conflict at the heart of the story but also how Miles is still a bit awkward as a hero along with the relationship between him and Gwen. Some also offered more in-depth introductions to new characters like Jessica Drew and Pavitr Prabhakar.
Super moms doing superhero things. 💗 Happy Mother’s Day!
— Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (@SpiderVerse) May 14, 2023
Hyundai, which in June of 2020 signed a multi-film promotional deal with Sony and which launched a TV spot as part of a campaign more recently featuring music from the film’s soundtrack.
The first clip came out in mid-May showing Miles in the middle of a meeting between his parents and principal about his grades and attendance record. Another has Gwen explaining the concept of the Spider Society to Miles, who’s trying to show off in front of her. IMDb also shared one with Gwen, Miguel and Jessica saving a helicopter crew. More were released by other outlets or through official channels over the course of the next few weeks.
TikTok users could add a filter to their dance videos that put graphics in the movie’s style around them. Meanwhile Alexa users could get showtimes and purchase tickets by adding the Spider-Verse theme to their devices. Web-shooters and other movie themed costumes and quests were added to Fortnight as well. A Snapchat filter not only added effects but also music by Metro Boomin’ from the movie’s soundtrack while Giphy stickers allowed you to add some adorable versions of the characters to your photos and videos.
A series of individual posters offered better looks at some of the main characters, including The Spot.
— Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (@SpiderVerse) May 18, 2023
Lord and Miller hosted a “friends and family” screening of the movie in L.A. toward the end of May, with the official red carpet premiere held a few days later. The producers, directors and other talent all talked about what was new, what was exciting and more.
A lyric video for Metro Boomin’s “Calling” capped off a portion of the campaign that heavily leaned on his work for the film’s soundtrack and sought to activate his fans for the movie.
overall
Feeling hip and relevant is easy for the campaign as a whole given the people involved and the attitude they’re working to convey. And that’s the main point, to let the audience know this Spider-Man movie is loose and fun and emotional, not stuffy and over-filled with world-building details.
But mostly, it sells that the film has heart in addition to featuring incredible animation. That’s why it’s garnered such overwhelmingly positive reviews and word of mouth in addition to a projected $80 million opening weekend.
How Disney has sold its latest live-action adaptation
The Little Mermaid (2023) movie poster from Walt Disney Studios
The Little Mermaid comes to theaters this week from Walt Disney Studios, the latest in a string of second takes on a story after the studio’s original animated versions.
Halle Bailey stars as Ariel, the mermaid who is fascinated by the surface world and who falls in love with Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), a human who she saves from drowning. Ariel makes a deal with the wicked Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) to become human herself so she can spend more time with Eric over the objections of her father King Triton (Javier Bardem). Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay provide the voices of Ariel’s underwater friends Sebastian, Scuttle and Flounder.
Rob Marshall directed this new version, written by David Magee and featuring most of the same songs by Alan Menken as the 1989 animated feature.
announcement and casting
Bailey’s casting in mid-2019 was simultaneously praised for its inclusiveness and derided by those small minded individuals for whom any nod in that direction is traumatic. Tremblay, McCarthy and others joined around the same time, with Diggs coming on board later that year.
This was one of several live-action productions halted by Disney in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Diggs spoke briefly about the movie while promoting other things in early 2021.
An interview with Mencken in September 2021 included him revealing he was writing four new songs for the movie.
Disney finally gave it a 2023 release date a month later.
the marketing campaign
The first teaser trailer debuted in September 2022. It mostly shows off the visuals of the undersea kingdom Ariel lives in but keeps her hidden until the end, when we see her singing the chorus from “Part of That World”.
That debut actually happened during Disney’s D23 Expo, with Bailey, Marshall and others in attendance.
A teaser poster wasn’t released until October, also showing Ariel looking longingly up at the surface from her undersea vantage point.
An interview with Marshall had him expressing his dismay that there was such a pointed negative reaction to Bailey’s casting that also resurfaced when the trailer came out.
“Part of That World” is once again the central element in a TV spot released in February featuring most of the same footage seen in the teaser trailer with brief glimpses of Eric and Ursula added.
The next poster came out in March of this year and features Ariel in almost the exact same position as on the teaser, but this time the rock she’s perched on is above the water. That one-sheet was mostly part of the build up to the debut of the official trailer (17m YouTube plays), which happened during the Oscars broadcast.
That trailer opens by showing the shipwreck that throws Eric into the ocean, where he’s saved by Ariel, something that doesn’t sit well with her father. Ursula takes advantage of Ariel’s curiosity to make her human and she goes to the surface world and finds Eric and yada yada yada.
More of the cast is shown on the theatrical one-sheet released a couple days later, but Ariel is still sitting on a rock here.
Bailey appeared on “GMA” to talk about taking on the lead role in the movie and what it was like to film underwater for so long, something also covered in another interview. EW then shared a handful of new photos.
A featurette has Bailey, Marshall and others talking about what’s been retained from the original, what’s been changed and more. Menken is part of that as well along with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who joined to help adapt some of the music and add his own style.
An extended TV spot offers a bit more Flounder and a bit more of Ursula’s conniving.
McCarthy appeared in person at Disney’s CinemaCon 2023 presentation in April, sharing how much fun it was to play the villain in the story and debuting new footage to attendees there. She then stopped by “GMA” to hit many of the same points.
Marshall was interviewed again about why he took on the project and what fans could expect along with sharing a bunch of new photos from the film.
Exclusive one-sheets for RealD 3D, Dolby, IMAX, Fandango and 4DX all came out, all showing different aspects of the characters and elements of the story, with some focusing solely on Ariel and others including Triton and Ursula.
Bailey’s cover feature in Ebony was just the latest high-profile press moment for the actor, who was all over the place as buzz around her performance became not only pervasive in general but also a central feature of the campaign.
A clip debuted during the MTV Movie & TV Awards broadcast, this one showing a tender moment between Ariel and Eric.
We get a look behind the scenes in another featurette showing the cast recording some of their voiceover work and talking about the training and other prep they did for filming.
The whole cast and crew along with others came out for the Hollywood premiere where they talked about the process of rehearsing and getting into character while praising everyone involved.
In attendance at the premiere was Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel in the 1989 version, and shortly after that event Bailey confirmed Benson has a cameo in this movie and has been nothing but supportive since she was cast.
A longer look at “Under The Sea” came out at that point to make sure everyone knew how awesome Diggs is.
Bailey performed “Part Of Your World” on “American Idol” in mid-May before the international press tour kicked off with stops in Mexico City, London and elsewhere.
One more featurette focused on Ariel’s story and Bailey’s performance as the character, including her singing.
— The Little Mermaid (@LittleMermaid) May 22, 2023
Menken was interviewed about which of the songs from the original movie were cut from this one and what changes have been made to a few of those that remain. Benson would approvingly comment on some of those changes, including one that gives Ariel back some power in her relationship with Eric.
The “Poor Unfortunate Souls” clip that was shown at CinemaCon last month was finally released online to show off more of McCarthy’s performance as Ursula.
overall
The campaign must have worked for a good number of people because tracking estimates an opening weekend of $120 million, likely helped by schools beginning to let out as summer gets underway.
There are qualms I have with the marketing from my own perspective, but most of those generally fall under the category of feeling tired of having new versions of popular things pushed at me time and time again. A few others have to do with how murky and smudged out this movie looks compared to the 1989 hand-drawn feature.
What redeems the campaign to a large extent is how much Bailey is involved in taking the message directly to young girls, especially young girls of color. That’s a big part of the marketing and publicity, beginning with the backlash to her casting and going through various appearances and initiatives closer to release.
So much of the word of mouth around the movie has revolved around how there doesn’t seem to be a definitive reason for it to have been made given the 1989 version still exists. But that outreach to audiences that have been largely underserved – or unserved entirely – makes a strong case for an update.
How Universal Pictures has sold the latest in a massively-ridiculous franchise
Fast X movie poster from Universal Pictures
Before we begin recapping the marketing campaign for this week’s big new theatrical release it once more needs to be stipulated that, with the exception of Hobbs & Shaw, I’ve not seen any of the Fast and/or Furious films. A scene here and there has crossed my radar but that’s about it. And I’m doing just fine.
With that out of the way, we’re here to look at the campaign for Fast X, the latest film in the series that’s now been going on for 22 years, five more than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Once more the story that began with a bunch of street racers sidelining as thieves hawking stolen DVD plays grows more outrageous, this time with those drivers getting involved in international espionage after being blamed for an explosion at the Vatican. Of course the theme of the story is about family and what it means to be in one, whether because of blood or friendship.
Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena and others from the earlier movies return along with newcomers Brie Larson, Scott Eastwood and Jason Momoa, the latter playing the film’s villain who bears a personal grudge against Diesel’s Dom.
Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin wrote the screenplay and Louis Leterrier directed, so let’s fire up the nitrous and take a look at how it’s been sold.
announcement and casting
Everyone knew the movie was happening – Lin and others even commented on it during the F9 marketing and publicity – but it wasn’t until August 2021 when Universal officially gave it a release date.
In mid-April Universal announced the beginning of production on the film and revealed the official title, one that was met with lots of gags about the treatment’s similarity to both the X-Men movies and to things like Jason X as well as the franchise’s inability to stick with a cohesive numbering scheme.
Larson joined the cast in early April and Momoa later that month.
Those additions were followed by a subtraction as Lin exited the film in late April, reportedly over creative conflicts with Diesel. Leterrier was named the new director a week or so later, picking up a production that was already halfway complete.
The casting of both Eastwood and Moreno came in May 2022. A month later it was among the movies Universal talked up to attendees of CineEurope. Perry joined the film in January.
Rodriguez talked about the impact Leterrier had when he joined the production and Momoa commented on joining the series while he was promoting “See” last year.
the marketing campaign: first gear
At the end of this past January a poster dropped promising audiences “The end of the road begins” while showing Dom clutching a rosary. That copy indicates this installment is *almost* the last in the series but that we’re only really at the start of the last chapter.
That was followed by a series of videos with highlights from the first nine movies, all meant to show how the story has been building to this point and how it really is all about family.
The ensemble cast of the film was shown off in a video where they all get out of a race car and look very serious.
The trailer (38m YouTube plays) was finally released, but in usual franchise fashion it wasn’t just dropped willy-nilly online but introduced at a massive event in Los Angeles in early February. In the trailer itself we see that Reyes (Momoa) is coming after Dom and his crew because he wronged him years ago and is seeking revenge. Other highlights include:
Dom smashing two helicopters behind him after he launches his car out of a transport plane
Jakob (Cena) firing missiles out of two launchers crudely attached to the sides of his car
Reyes not being able to look at anyone unless his head is tilted down so he has to look out the tops of his eyes
Flashback footage from earlier films with the late Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner working with Dom
There were lots of interviews and such from that trailer event, including Leterrier talking about the harried circumstances under which he joined the film halfway through.
A commercial that aired during the Super Bowl broadcast shortly after that cut the trailer down to its most essential elements. Right around the same time Diesel appeared at the NBA All Star Draft to open the event and hype up the movie.
The theatrical poster released in mid-March puts Dom at the center of a collage of all the characters, cars and locations, all of which is framed within a big “X”.
There was a very short featurette that has Diesel and everyone else talking about coming together once again and how it’s really all about family.
TV spots began airing in earnest (the only time that word can be used when discussing these movies) in early April, continuing to pull out some of the biggest sequences to highlight while also offering time for Dom to brood and sound solemn. There was one specifically for the NBA Playoffs featuring Bronny James, a good chance to once more stress the importance of family.
Another featurette has everyone involved talking about how this one ups the ante on all fronts even more than the previous installments and how great it was to have some of the new faces around.
The studio sponsored livestreams of performances from Coachella in mid-April.
the marketing campaign: second gear
With a month to go before the movie came out, a couple rounds of character posters had each of the major players staring out over the top of a steering wheel.
The second trailer (28m YouTube plays) features a bit more story than the first, opening with Reyes framing them for a massive bomb that rolls through Vatican City before going off. Dom then has to assemble lots of his current and former compatriots to help save his son who’s been kidnapped and clear their name.
Momoa and others give the audience some background on who Dante Reyes is, as well as why Momoa wanted to join the franchise, in a featurette.
Universal showed off the movie during its CinemaCon presentation at the end of April, with Diesel and others from the cast appearing on stage to talk about their love not only for this series but also the theaters it will be shown in.
More sports-related promotions came in early May as Diesel and Rodriguez made an appearance at a Formula 1 race in Miami and those watching the Kentucky Derby on NBC or Peacock got a look at exclusive footage from the film.
An extended “final” trailer (7m YouTube plays) came out just earlier this week, pretty much compiling lots of the footage we’ve previously seen in trailers, TV spots, clips and other media.
Everyone turned out for the premiere, held appropriately in Rome. That kicked off the international media tour with additional stops in Mexico, New Zealand and elsewhere before concluding in L.A., where Ludacris was joined by some of his costars at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony.
At the Rome event Diesel hinted that this was just the first in a two-part story to be concluded in the 11th film in a couple years, though the director and studio have been more vague about those plans.
There were also a bevy of stories about the whirlwind process of Leterrier coming on as director, something that apparently went from “inquiry” to “he’s landing and on his way to the set” in a matter of hours. He was also interviewed about securing some of the cameos seen in the film and more.
overall
The $60 million projected for the movie’s domestic opening weekend is overshadowed by the $280 million it’s expected to bring in globally, showing that this campaign hasn’t changed many minds or done much to attract new interest here in the U.S. but it has successfully triggered awareness overseas, and that’s what really matters.
From the moment it kicked off, the marketing has been all
And there’s plenty here about the cars and how the focus is still on characters wanting to
How 20th Century Studios has sold the remake of a 90’s comedy classic
White Men Can’t Jump movie poster from Hulu and 20th Century Studios
White Men Can’t Jump, out this week on Hulu, stars Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow as Kamal and Jeremy, respectively. Those are different characters than those played by Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson in the 1992 original, but the premise is largely the same.
Kamal is a hotshot on the neighborhood basketball court, earning extra cash by winning games while Jeremy hustles his opponents who bet on him not being able to play at their level on account of his being white. The two figure out there’s more money to be made by combining their talents. Teyana Taylor and Laura Harrier play Imani and Tatiana, the girlfriends of Imani and Jeremy.
The film was directed by Calmatic from a screenplay by Kenya Barris and Doug Hall, with those two collaborating on the story with Ron Shelton, who wrote and directed the original movie.
So despite the assumption there will be significantly fewer day-glo hats and pastel tank tops featured, let’s take a look at how it’s been sold.
announcement and casting
The movie was announced in late November 2021 with Calmatic directing, though Barris had reportedly been working on the project for a number of years prior to that.
Harlow and Walls were both cast in the lead roles in early 2022, followed shortly by most of the supporting cast, including Lance Reddick in what was to become one of his last screen performances.
the marketing campaign
The marketing of the film began in early February on an odd note, with a TV spot style video that didn’t do a lot to introduce us to the specific characters or premise but did establish that we were in an updated version of WMCJ, with new conversations and attitudes but the same basic dynamics in place.
In mid-April the studio held a special screening along with a Q&A featuring Calmatic and Walls.
Harlow was interviewed in May about taking on his first acting role and the work he did to prepare for the audition.
The first trailer (3.6m YouTube plays) came out about that time and starts with Jeremy hustling Kamal for a few hundred dollars. Both of them are having money problems and getting pressure from their girlfriends about having a more stable future, so teaming up for a big tournament to win the prize money seems like a good solution. First they need to get the entry fee, so there’s a lot of hustling to do and basketball to play as the unlikely pair begin to begrudgingly respect each other.
The poster that came out along with the trailer simply shows the two main characters without any copy about the story or other context. It’s just the two of them, the title and the release date.
Kamal and Jeremy debate who our greatest living filmmaker is in the first clip, released at the beginning of May. Another clip shows someone arriving at one of their games with a flamethrower, which seems like an extreme reaction.
The next poster just shifts the camera and poses of the characters a bit but maintains the same basic idea as the first one-sheet, just with “Play hard. Hustle harder.” added as copy.
Another commercial/online video recapped the elements of the story and characters.
The director and members of the cast took part in a “Hoop Bus” event at Venice Beach where attendees to compete in various basketball challenges and find exclusive movie merchandise and more.
— 20th Century Studios (@20thcentury) May 10, 2023
That was followed by red carpets premieres and screenings in both Los Angeles and New York City, with most of the talent involved appearing at both events. Harlow and others talked about working with the late Reddick and more.
Calmatic explains in a featurette that the premise of this movie is the same as the original but the story is brand new while the cast shares who their characters are and what motivates them.
overall
What strikes me from the campaign as a whole is how uninterested it is in introducing us to the characters or explaining much about the story. It 100% relies on the audience knowing what the basic premise is going to be based on the title alone while working to convey an attitude instead of anything substantial.
That’s fine in and of itself. At the very least it’s a legitimate tactic to take. But then don’t make claims to this being anything all that original and own that it’s an updating of a familiar story in the same way that Richard III can be shifted forward and set in World War I.
Aside from those quibbles, it looks like a fun retelling of the story, just with a different sort of chemistry than was seen between Snipes and Harrelson and in a vastly different cultural context.
Niki Caro directs this week’s new Netflix release The Mother, written by Misha Green, Peter Craig and Andrea Berloff. The movie stars Jennifer Lopez as a character known simply as The Mother, an assassin who has been hiding out but who is forced to reemerge when the daughter she gave up years ago (played by Lucy Paez) is threatened.
Joseph Fiennes, Gael García Bernal, Omari Hardwick and others also appear in the film, which is part of the post-Wick slate of cinematic stories with big stars playing very dangerous people, usually loners, in action movies.
So with all that in mind let’s look at how Netflix has sold it to the general audience.
announcement and casting
The movie was announced in early 2021 with Lopez attached to star, Caro to direct and Netflix already agreeing to distribute. Most of the rest of the cast was added toward the end of that year as production was getting underway.
Netflix released a behind-the-scenes still of Lopez filming in October 20021.
A small bit of footage was included in Netflix’s 2022 preview of its upcoming feature films.
the marketing campaign
In September 2022 a teaser trailer (2.3m YouTube plays) came out that begins by showing The Mother surviving on her own in a remote wilderness cabin by using the skills she has. It then cuts to her talking with her daughter, who is being hunted by equally dangerous people.
That teaser includes the May 2023 release date in the description but also ends with a more vague “Coming soon” title card.
Fast forward to January 2023 when the movie was once more included in the streamer’s sizzle reel of upcoming original movies.
For as early as that teaser trailer was, the official trailer (8m YouTube plays) wasn’t released until just this past April, only a month before the scheduled release date. This time we start in the past and see how The Mother’s baby was taken from her at birth, told the best way to protect it was to stay away. Years later the girl is targeted by the same bad people The Mother honked off long ago and she has to jump back into action to save the daughter who doesn’t know her at all and teach her to survive.
A poster was released at the same time that shares the title and release date with a photo of The Mother in a hooded parka, a rifle draped on her back and ready for action.
In a short post on Netflix’s Tudum site, Caro shared how Lopez’s dance training helped her dive right into the stunt work needed for the film. That coincided with a behind-the-scenes featurette on the story and how Lopez worked hard to embody the character she plays.
Lopez appeared in a silly video filled with messages from fans via social media about how they want her to be their mom. She also did one of those challenges to see if she could identify which of her earlier movies a quote came from.
She and Paez appeared on “Today” to talk about the movie and the bond they formed while filming and by herself on “The View” to talk about the stunt training and action sequences as well as the story of the film.
While everyone involved turned out for the L.A. red carpet premiere earlier this week the focus of course was on Lopez and husband Ben Affleck.
The campaign is fine, with the scale similar to other marketing pushes from Netflix for their feature films. And the story is communicated effectively if not in an overly-compelling manner. But it also relies *heavily* on simply selling Lopez as the main attraction, sometimes at the expense of that story or other elements more specific to the movie.
picking up the spare
There were a number of featurettes and other videos released after the movie hit Netflix, including a behind-the-scenes look with Lopez, a look at how she filmed some of the stunts in the movie, a conversation about outdated technology between Lopez and Paez, how Lopez transformed into the character she plays and more.
How Marvel Studios has sold the capper to its space-faring super hero trilogy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 movie poster from Marvel Studios
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that in 2014 few people would have expected Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to be hitting theaters almost a decade later. Expectations for the first movie were kept low, with lots of talk about it being Marvel’s “first comedy” (a designation also applied to Ant-Man a year later) and how it featured a group of heroes so far from the A List they’d only heard about it in stories. But Marvel Studios needed a group of characters to expand the universe to outer space and the Guardians fit the bill.
After coming together in the first movie and exploring lots of daddy issues in the second, this week’s installment sees the unlikely team needing to protect one of their own from the consequences of their previous actions. The actual plot may be too convoluted to fully encapsulate, so here’s the official synopsis:
Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him to defend the universe along with protecting one of their own. A mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.
In addition to writer/director James Gunn (more on that below) all the main cast is back, including Chris Pratt as Quill, Zoe Saldaña as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Vin Diesel as Groot, Pom Klementieff as Mantis and Sean Gunn as Kraglin while the combo of Gunn and Bradley Cooper provide the motion capture for and voice of Rocket, respectively. Joining the story this time around are Will Poulter as Adam Warlock, sent to destroy the Guardians for their crimes and Chukwudi Iwuji as The High Evolutionary, who figures into Rocket’s origins and who the team has to outwit to help their comrade.
So with all that established let’s take a look at how the movie has been sold.
announcement and casting
Things got off to a rocky start when, in mid-July of 2018, Disney abruptly fired director James Gunn, who had been working on the script and other aspects of pre-production. That came after a campaign by right-wing trolls and assholes brought up old Tweets published by Gunn that were certainly offensive but which were old news. The same posts had come up years before the first GotG movie and Gunn had apologized for them, but with this renewed push – spurred by his outspoken criticism of President Trump – Disney almost immediately folded and showed these cultural terrorists they would achieve whatever ends they desired.
The backlash from fans as well as the stars of the movies and other celebrities was swift for just that reason, often pointing out that Gunn had grown much more aware in the years since those posts. The consensus (rightly) was that firing him for old material like this sent the signal that improving yourself wasn’t worth it, so why bother? Disney later confirmed after a few weeks of back-and-forth that no, he would not be returning. All of that lead to a delay in production starting.
So it was relatively surprising when, in the middle of March of 2019, Disney reversed course and announced Gunn was returning to the director’s position. Apparently someone decided that caving to right-wing trolls making bad faith arguments wasn’t a sustainable business model.
During the promotional cycle for Brightburn, Gunn was finally interviewed about that whole situation and how things transpired, including how the cast all reached out both publicly and personally to show their support.
In early 2020, as many films were being delayed and productions shut down, Gunn assured fans things were still on schedule and there shouldn’t be any problems with filming.
During Disney’s December 2020 investors presentation the news was announced that before the movie came out a “Guardians Holiday Special” directed by Gunn would premiere on Disney+.
Gillan spoke briefly about the movie during the Gunpowder Milkshake publicity cycle.
Poulter was cast as Adam Warlock in October 2021.
A month later Gunn shared a photo marking the beginning of filming.
the marketing campaign: volume one
In July 2022 fans at San Diego Comic-Con got a look at the first footage from the film, including what seems to be background on Rocket’s origins and more. That was part of the panel where members of the cast and crew appeared and a release date announced, with Gunn also confirming this was the end of the story for this particular cast of characters. He also later clarified that the trailer wasn’t released online for the general public because the special effects weren’t ready just yet and wouldn’t hold up to repeated viewings.
With Gunn making it clear the story of this team was coming to an end it seemed the cast was ready to put this stage of their careers behind them as well. Saldaña, while she was promoting Avatar: The Way of Water at the end of 2022, said she was eager to not have to go through the daily makeup process again and had other “bitter” feelings about the filming of this movie. Later on while he was promoting Knock at the Cabin Bautista promised he would never return to the character of Drax after this film lest it tarnish the character as a cynical cash grab.
Those attitudes were largely understandable given that while this is just the third movie of their own, they’ve played these characters in three or four other MCU movies in that time. And you could kind of tell everyone was just phoning it in when the “Holiday Special” hit Disney+ at the end of November, itself preceded by a full campaign of press interviews, live events, posters and more.
A few more new stills were included in an interview of Gunn talking about the story, his nervousness around making the third in a trilogy and more, including leaving the series as he becomes the head of Warner Bros.’ DC development.
the marketing campaign: volume two
The campaign for the movie itself began in early December of last year when the first trailer (29.1m YouTube plays) was released. It opens with what looks like the Guardians returning to Earth, but when they land it’s inhabited by what look like human-animal hybrids. From there we get brief glimpses of the High Evolutionary and Adam Warlock but the focus is on hinting that the story is about exploring Rocket’s origins along with the usual wackiness the team is known for along with lots of brooding and a bit of sadness along the way.
The poster released simultaneously shows the Guardians standing on the wing of their ship. It’s not much but communicates the bare essentials of the marketing message, that there’s a new movie coming out.
Both of the above were formally unveiled when Saldaña appeared at Brazil Comic-Con to get fans there excited about the movie.
Another trailer (15m YouTube plays) was released in mid-February begins by making sure everyone is up to speed on the story so far, especially the romance between Star-Lord and Gamorra, which was interrupted by her being killed in Avengers: Infinity War and essentially replaced by her past self. The actual story is still not explained in any sort of detail but we see a bit more of High Evolutionary and his megalomania along with the fact that everyone seems to be in the mood for wrapping up their arcs and summarizing their feelings about everyone else.
The Guardians are seen a bit more clearly on the next poster, which has them all kind of staring off into the middle distance, each in a slightly different direction.
As part of Women’s History Month in March, Disney+ released “MPower,” a propaganda film documentary about the female characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe produced by Saldaña.
TV spots began running at the beginning of March as tickets went on sale, each hitting slightly different moments but all covering the same basic ideas of the story wrapping up and Rocket somehow being at the center of an emotional story.
A variation on the latest key art was used in early April on a poster announcing an exclusive IMAX event featuring the first to GotG movies ending with an early screening of this third film.
That was followed by a round of exhibitor-exclusive posters from IMAX, RealD 3D, 4DX, Dolby, ScreenX and Fandango. The ScreenX art was the best because it takes a more original approach by not only being vertically-oriented but showing Rocket reenacting the “evolution of man” progression. A number of them did focus on Rocket or at least bring him to the front of the team lineup to make it clear he was going to be the lead in the story.
A series of character posters – including one for Cosmo the Spacedog – came next.
— Guardians of the Galaxy (@Guardians) April 5, 2023
The cast along with Gunn and Marvel Studio’s Kevin Feige all appear in a featurette expounding on the fun they had making this final installment of the series and how all three films have been about the chosen family the characters made for themselves.
Empire Magazine published an interview with Gunn that included more photos, especially of Adam Warlock and other new elements of the movie.
Marvel set up a Knowhere pop up story/experience in California in the same area as and at the same time as Coachella to take advantage of all the hip young people headed to the music festival, encouraging them to stop in and take a look at props and costumes from the movie along with new swag and products.
Out in the desert? 🌵 Knowhere is waiting for you.
Stop by today before 6pm 🕕 for your last chance to visit.
The first clip from mid-April has Quill trying to convince Past Gamora to maybe herself up to the same romance he and Present Gamora had before she died, which is supposed to be endearing but is just embarrassing.
Another featurette has everyone reminiscing on the decade-long journey they’ve taken with these characters.
An extended TV spot takes a similar approach, using footage from the first two movies to setup this story.
The next clip shows some of the other animals High Evolutionary has been experimenting on in a flashback to Rocket’s early days. That clip also served as the news Linda Cardellini was voicing one of those characters.
Gunn and members of the cast embarked on the international publicity tour, kicking off in Seoul and continuing in Paris and other locations.
In additional to sponsoring the Discover Weekly playlist for a while, the studio launched its own K-GOTG Radio playlist on Spotify featuring some of the popular tunes featured in all three of the movies.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Spotify Discover Weekly sponsorship
The drama involving Gunn’s unceremonious firing from the movie in 2018 and the efforts by the entire cast to get him back on board along with more from the last 10 years going all the way back to the original casting process were covered in a THR cover story.
Everyone turned out for the official L.A. red carpet premiere at the end of April and looked back on their time together and how the future likely doesn’t involve them playing these characters again but that they all enjoyed working together and hope to do so again soon.
Pratt, Gillian, Gunn and the others all participated in additional interviews, talk show appearances and other press stops in the last couple weeks leading up to release, not really covering any new ground but reiterating stories they’d already told and commenting on making the final film in this unexpected trilogy. Breaking out of that mold was an interview with Iwuji where he talks about joining the series at the end and is praised by Gunn.
overall
Marvel does kind of need the movie to open at the projected $120m level this weekend, even if that’s below the opening weekend of the second film in 2017, to stop “super hero fatigue” from entrenching in the public psyche. More than that, it needs the movie to not drop 70% like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania did a couple months ago.
The focus on the emotional nature of the series ending comes off as *very* forced given these were characters we were actively reminded not to actually root for and who are consistently portrayed as just the worst. These are awful “heroes” but the assumption seems to be that we’ve grown attached to them and are going to be incredibly sad when they stop appearing in movies.
Other random thoughts:
There’s an alternate universe where Sean Gunn was given the chance to play Star-Lord and honestly I wish we lived in that one.
Congratulations, Marvel, on finding not one but two ways to underuse Linda Cardellini.
Wait, so we get a two hours on the early days of Rocket’s creation but at no point in the MCU has Hawkeye’s backstory even been hinted at or referenced? This is my super villain origin story.
This is just the latest super hero/sci-fi movie to cast an actor of color but cast them as the villain, hide them under layers of real or digital makeup or both.
Cinematic Slant 