Tag: artemis fowl

Artemis Fowl – Marketing Recap

How Disney is selling its latest potential franchise artemis fowl poster 2starter.

When Disney greenlit Artemis Fowl, a movie adaptation of the hit 2001 novel, it likely had aspirations of it starting a whole new Harry Potter-esque franchise that would diversify the studio’s top-tier brands outside of Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar. The company’s massive marketing machine could come around the movie and propel it to box-office success, opening the door for sequels covering the rest of the books in the series.

Those hopes might still be in place but the scale might be reduced a bit as the Covid-19 shutdown of the last few months means Artemis Fowl is debuting not on theaters but on Disney+.

The story is focused on the young Artemis Jr. (Ferdia Shaw), the latest in a long line of criminal masterminds who is being groomed by his father Artemis Sr. (Colin Farrell) to one day take over the family business. When Sr. goes missing, Jr. sets out to find him and discovers the job entails more working and dealing with fairies, trolls and other magical creatures than he anticipated. Artemis has to navigate dangers he never imagined with the help of a few trusted allies.

Despite the change in release platform, Disney’s campaign for the movie – directed by Kenneth Branagh – still clearly has the goal of starting a franchise of films that can work for years and span stories.

The Posters

artemis fowl poster

It’s “Time to believe” according to the first teaser poster (by marketing agency LA) released in November of last year. Below that copy we see Artemis’ face, mostly hidden in the shadows of blue and green lighting, with some kind of strange language reflected in the lenses of his large glasses. It nicely hints at his intelligence as well as the mysteries he’ll be uncovering.

The second poster (by marketing agency BLT Communications) came out in March and still reflects the targeted theatrical release date. For the imagery it pulls the camera back for a design that’s very familiar for the “franchise film with a star-studded cast and lots of effects” genre. The supporting characters are arranged around Artemis and a handful of locations are hinted at while in the background a huge vortex is opening that is clearly supernatural and represents the kind of dangerous journey our young adventurer will be embarking on.

An updated version of that poster was released in April to highlight the new Disney+ release strategy and date.

The Trailers

The teaser trailer (6.2 million views on YouTube), released in November, sells a magical journey for young people. A raspy narrator talks about why they were driven underground to avoid the humans as we see a decrepit mansion followed by some sort of incredible city filled with floating vehicles and more. Along with that there’s adventure, archery and more as the dangers Fowl faces become evident.

This isn’t about the father, we’re told as the second trailer (4.6 million views on YouTube) from March opens, it’s about Artemis, the son. He’s grown strong, but when his father disappears Artemis learns his father may not have been the good man he believed him to be. He sets out to find him and learns the truth is more complicated, that his father was also protecting the world, and so enlists allies as he dives into a world filled with magical creatures and amazing adventures.

Online and Social

As has become the norm, the movie’s website is kind of a disappointment, featuring only the barest of information on the story along with the trailer, some photos and not much else.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

On St. Patrick’s Day an “Irish Blessing” video was released showing off the action and adventure the movie had to offer. Around the same time came a featurette that had Branagh and others talking about how they approached the story and brought the books to life on the screen.

In the midst of shifting release dates for a handful of movies in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the closure of theaters Disney made the surprising announcement, accompanied by a short promo, that the film would debut exclusively on Disney+.

A “Special Look” came out shortly after that emphasizing the special gear Artemis uses for his rescue mission as well as the friends he enlists for his quest.

Artemis is looking for clues that will lead him to his father’s secrets in the first clip released by Disney in mid-May.

Later that month the first TV spot ran making sure audiences understood this was an epic fantasy adventure they’d be able to stream on Disney+.

Media and Publicity

A first look at Dench and other parts of the movie was part of EW’s 2019 preview issue late last year.

Eoin Colfer, the author of the source book, appeared on “Good Morning, America” in late May to talk about seeing his work come to life and being involved in that process.

Colfer, along with costar Lara McDonnell, did a virtual panel for Book Con to touch on similar subject matter.

Overall

The promotional efforts on display here are quite good, setting a solid tone for the audience and selling a story filled with adventure and mystery. That’s a good message to send as it makes lots of promises that the movie can eventually deliver on.

Of particular note here are the trailers and the advertising elements, which are able to show off the spectacle of the movie. The lack of substantive publicity and press efforts are a bit surprising, though given the turmoil washing through the media world it might be that there are simply no more outlets to interview talent.

What’s most capturing my interest, though, is that unlike many of the movies that have gone straight to streaming or VOD recently, this is a big, live-action flick that, as mentioned before, is clearly intended to kick off a cinematic series. It’s one thing for an animated feature, of which there are plenty for all platforms, as well as for low-budget indies and rom-coms.

So the campaign here is a good one, but it’s selling something that has been almost exclusively a theatrical experience. There’s little doubt it will still be popular on Disney+, but it might not be the kind of streaming experience people are looking for.

Picking Up the Spare

The troubled road the movie took during development is covered here, making it seem as if the final version was always destined to be written off as quickly as possible. 

A series of seven character posters came out just as the movie was hitting Disney+. There was also a new short video promo to mark its availability. 

Branagh was interviewed about the making of the film and the process of finishing it during quarantine. 
The main characters were introduced again in a new featurette.

Universal Trolls Theaters, Theaters Demand Tax Be Paid

The future is in play, right now.

Over the last week or so there has been an escalating war of words between Universal Pictures and a handful of theater chains? The object of their disagreement is just what role each party has to play in the continued business model of the other.

The inciting incident in this particular fracas, the equivalent of Archduke Franz Ferdinand being assassinated, was the release of Trolls World Tour a few weeks ago. Universal made the unusual – even unprecedented – decision to release it straight to premium VOD early last month because all the theaters were closed, a result of precautions taken in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic still sweeping across the nation and world. Not wanting to lose the momentum of the marketing campaign that had already been running with a delay, the studio opted instead to break ground it and others have been eyeing for a while.

Before the release, NATO made it clear theater owners would hold a very large grudge for a very long time against Universal for making such a move. There wasn’t much that could be done to stop the wheels that had been put in motion at the time, but it was apparently necessary to make public statements like this in order to communicate the displeasure of NATO’s members at having been called, essentially, irrelevant.

Since then it has called out the success of this strategy, touting positive sales numbers for a digital release and appeared in the Top 10 titles on Amazon Prime when it was first available.

More recently it’s gotten very awkward. Here’s a short recap:

Universal: This has turned out very well, to the tune of about $100 million.

NATO: Shut up! People love the theatrical experience.

AMC: We’re so put out by this we’re refusing to play any Universal movies in the future after theaters reopen.

Regal Cinemas: Same, and every other studio needs to make sure it doesn’t even think about shortening the theatrical-to-video window.

Universal: We intend to make premium VOD something we consider regularly along with theatrical release.

Today it made good on that promise, announcing The High Note would no longer be getting a theatrical run but would instead be going to premium VOD later this month.

As Julie Alexander pointed out on Twitter, there’s a lot of context that has to be considered among all this rhetoric. Namely, that studios have wanted to experiment with premium VOD for a decade or so, but theaters have always pushed back, using their power to draw mass audiences as leverage. But, as other people have said, their refusal to even allow that experimentation or be part of the solution means they have effectively locked themselves out of conversations they could be benefitting from right now. And the leverage they once had has diminished as ticket sales – which is different from ticket revenue – declines year to year. Theaters are in a much worse negotiation position than they were a decade ago.

Universal was first through the door and as such seems to be drawing the bulk of the fire from opponents of this new tactic. Warner Bros. isn’t too far behind, though, as it announced last month its animated Scoob! will skip theaters as well. And Disney is going one further by pulling Artemis Fowl from theaters and putting it on Disney+ in June.

Some have argued that the Great Recession didn’t kill theaters even though VOD was a viable option at the time. That’s true, but streaming wasn’t nearly the powerhouse it is today, and it certainly wasn’t the case that each company had its own platform it was working overtime to monetize and turn into a Netflix-killer.

In other words, the landscape today is very different, and the closure of movie theaters may be an even more drastic moment that was originally foreseen. Studios may finally realize that theatrical release is optional, not necessary, especially for films that don’t seem to care much potential for awards consideration.

What will be interesting to watch is how, if at all, the marketing changes for these direct-to-VOD releases. Will they have the same level of promotional partnerships as their theatrical cousins? Will they receive similar advertising spending and media planning? Trolls was an aberration in that the campaign was already so far along, but we could see outside companies pull their support if they know the movie isn’t going to theaters. Or deals could change to become more contingent on what release a movie is ultimately given and how it succeeds. In other words, it could become much more like the entire rest of the advertising world, where results are what matter.

Theaters are likely past the point where they can significantly alter the future of how studios will approach their release strategy. The bluster that’s been going back and forth in the press is more about negotiating upcoming contracts than anything else, as it’s not quite plausible a massive chain would outright refuse to play films from a studio like Universal. But AMC had to say something in order to assure stakeholders – including the banks holding the company’s massive debt load – it wasn’t going gently into that good night.

No one, least of all myself, wants to see theaters disappear. But they have gone from the only game in town to the best game in town to merely one of the games in town, with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. The label “direct to video” no longer carries the derogatory connotations it once did, largely because of the investments made by studios into quality material.

While there are a number of unknowns still floating out there, what seems to be clear is that this isn’t the end. Studios can’t keep punting releases down the calendar indefinitely, as eventually there will be too much backlog for theaters to handle. And those releases will be so tightly packed the studios will be tripping over their own feet. More premium VOD titles will be announced, and the theater chains will fall farther behind the times as audiences become more used to this kind of offering.

The future, in other words, will not wait for anyone to catch up with the present.