How Apple has sold a trip down nostalgia lane
When you think about it, the actual Wall Street functions largely the same as most after-market collectibles markets. Assets are only as valuable as they’re perceived to be at a particular moment and that price can rise or fall in the blink of an eye for no other reason than a certain group of people got distracted by something new and shiny.
The Beanie Bubble, based on the book by Zac Bissonnette, is about just such a market. The movie stars Zach Galifianakis as Ty Warner, head of the toy company behind Beanie Babies, those small minimalist stuffed animals that were all the rage for several years in the early 1990s. That company grows quickly but that growth is based on the promise of a strong secondary market to keep demand high. Surrounding Warner are three key women: His wife Sheila (Sarah Snook), co-founder Robbie (Elizabeth Banks) and Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), one of the core executives in the company who sees early signs of the bubble bursting.
The movie is co-directed by Kristen Gore, who also wrote the screenplay, and Damian Kulash and is getting a limited theatrical release from Apple this week before coming to Apple TV+ next week, so let’s look at how it’s been sold.
announcement and casting
Banks, Galifianakis, Snook and others were announced as headlining the cast in January, 2022. Apple TV+ acquired distribution rights at the same time.
It’s also worth noting that a documentary was released on HBO Max at the end of 2021 titled “Beanie Mania” that covered much the same ground this movie appears to though with more of a focus on a group of women who helped turn a child’s stuffed animal into a massive collector’s market people pinned their financial hopes on. The two projects seem unrelated, but the timing is coincidental enough to warrant mentioning.
the marketing campaign
A handful of photos were included in an interview with Banks, Gore and others involved in the movie as they talked about the complicated real-life characters, an incredible and kind of tragic story and more.
Things really started in mid-June with the release of a trailer (2.4m YouTube plays). There isn’t necessarily a linear story on display here but we do see how Ty and his business partner Robbie start out just wanting to sell small stuffed animals before stumbling on the brass ring. As the craze out in the world escalates Warner’s ego grows with it to the point where he becomes insufferable, but there are signs the bottom is about to drop out of the business, signs he ignores because it conflicts with his vision of success.
The poster that came out at the same time just shows all four of the main characters standing alongside each other. It’s not much visually so the copy reading “The crazy behind the craze” has to do a lot of the heavy-lifting in terms of conveying the story to the audience.
Robbie is talking about how she feels betrayed by Ty in the first clip that came out in mid-July.
A second clip shows the first meeting between Warner and Sheila, which is not the romantic meet-cute such things usually are.
OK Go released “This”, a new song for the movie, which makes sense considering co-director Kulash is the lead singer and guitarist for the band.
There were also a couple interviews with Kulash and Gore where they talked about what interested them about the story and why they wanted to direct it.
overall
The campaign was obviously impacted by the strikes running through Hollywood, which kept the stars out of the press and which likely means the interviews with Gore especially all happened a while ago.
Other than that it’s a decent marketing push from Apple, though it never achieves real momentum because of the very tight timeframe it’s happened within. But the message, clearly seen in the trailer and communicated by Gore in her interviews, that the story is being told through the lens of the women in Warner’s life is a compelling one since we kind of know that story, just not like this.
picking up the spare
The directors spoke more about how they were more interested in telling the story of the people around Ty Warner than they were in his own and how they crafted that story.
Banks was also interviewed about her role and her favorite toy trends.
Apple released a blooper reel after the movie came out.
The multi-talented James Gunn has made a career of telling stories that both amuse us and scare the heck out of us in good old-fashioned, B-movie ways. This week, putting on his producer hat, Gunn brings audiences Brightburn.
Brandon hovers over the ground with a makeshift cape on his back and a strange alien mask on his head on the first poster. It’s an ominous image, not a heroic one, especially given the black and red colors used in the design. The second is even creepier, featuring a close-up of that mask. Both communicate that the movie comes from the team behind Guardians of the Galaxy
“We’re getting the band back together” seems to be the main focus of Pitch Perfect 3. After going their separate ways, the members of the Barden Bellas find that adulting is hard and nothing makes them feel as good as singing in a college a cappella group did. Not only that, but a new generation has come along and taken the group’s title, reminding them of how old they’re getting and how their lives aren’t turning out as expected.
Cinematic Slant 