james mcavoy – Cinematic Slant

IT Chapter Two – Marketing Recap

You can read my full review of the marketing for It Chapter Two at The Hollywood Reporter.

Online and Social

Warner Bros. actually put together a pretty good website for the movie, offering more than just the usual marketing materials. “Videos” has both of the trailers while “Synopsis” is exactly what it sounds like and “Photos” has a small collection of stills. There’s also more information on “Derry Canal Days” – the experiential event hosted in Los Angeles – and the promotional “Partners” that signed on to support the campaign.

Media and Press

Around the time of CinemaCon in 2018, Skarsgård talked about returning to play Pennywise while promoting his role in the “Castle Rock” Stephen King-based series on Hulu. That “Scare Diego” event included an early look at footage and messages from the cast and crew. Chastain revealed some facts about the movie while promoting X-Men: Dark Phoenix earlier this year and Hader talked about it while promoting the second season of “Barry.”

More first looks, particularly of the adult versions of the characters seen in the first movie, came out over time.

The cast and crew talked about where the characters are in the story just before SDCC kicked off.

With so much conversation about deaging actors because of other upcoming movies, director Andy Muschietti pointed out this movie features the same technology being used because the child actors have aged significantly in the couple years since the first movie was shot.

McAvoy spoke about the process of getting ready for the movie and how he prepared to play the adult version of a character previously seen only as a child. Around that same time Muschietti started hinting there was an extended version that combined both movies into a single feature that may see the light of day at some point. He also commented on how he went about filming the hate crime scene from the book, one that was not featured in the earlier TV adaptation. Conversations around the runtime included some details on how the director made the tough decision on what elements to cut.

While at the movie’s Los Angeles premiere Chastain and others spoke about the pressure they did or didn’t feel to live up to the expectations of the first film.

A profile of Hader arrived as the actor is having a moment, with not just this movie but a number of other high-profile projects putting him in the public eye on multiple fronts. The actor also appeared on “The Tonight Show” to joke around with his old “SNL” pal.

Finn Wolfhard – who plays the younger version of Richie – also received a writeup that touched on his role on “Stranger Things” as well.

The movie’s costume designers were apparently freaked out by how Bill Skarsgård embodied the clown they themselves created. Writer Gary Dauberman received some attention as well.

Overall

In addition to what I said at THR, it’s notable that with the exception of 2018’s CinemaCon, the campaign has happened entirely within the last four months. That’s an incredibly consolidated timeline for what had to be one of WB’s biggest releases in the second half of the year and one that was reported to be among the most anticipated by the audience of the fall.

Picking Up the Spare

Skarsgard appeared, sans makeup, on “The Late Show.” Hader showed up on “The Daily Show” while McAvoy appeared on “The Late Show.”

IMAX released a featurette conversation with the filmmakers. Muschietti also spoke here about the pressure of living up to the scares of the original.

A series of characters posters came out after the movie was in theaters.

Dark Phoenix – Marketing Recap

You can read the rest of my recap of the marketing for Dark Phoenix at The Hollywood Reporter.

Online and Social

Minimal effort has been put into the movie’s official website, which just sports the standard marketing content and little else.

Media and Publicity

While there had been conversations about the movie for a while, ever scene production of Days of Future Past, the first actual publicity beat hit in December of last year in an Entertainment Weekly cover story that explained what the story would be, a bit about the source material and more. It included first look photos, concept art, comments from Lawrence about her role.

Chastain also spoke about her secret role in the movie and how she got involved, a process that included finding the script to include something other than the usual female characters and roles. Some of those involved in the movie also admitted to the shortcomings of X-Men: Apocalypse, which was not reviewed well, and how this movie is meant to celebrate the team’s female characters. It was also revealed in that story that Genosha, an island created by Magneto as a mutant-only nation, will appear.

Empire had another set of stills offering glimpses of more characters.

Immediately after the second trailer – which Chastain debuted when she appeared on “The Tonight Show” – was released in late February, Kinberg was interviewed about why a notable character’s death was shown – or at least hinted at – in the trailer, saying it was in part to show the audience the movie would feature significant stakes.

Shipp was interviewed about the movie, commenting on how it finally gives the female characters in the X franchise something interesting to do.

The end of “Game of Thrones” also provided a hook for interviews like this with Turner where she reflected on what’s next for her – including this movie – now that she’s free of the pressures of being on a show.

Kinberg also spoke one more time about being responsible for bringing the series to a close and how he managed not having all the cast locked in during pre-production. Another interview with the director talked about how he approached handling what he knew was going to be a finale for the series.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” hosted a joint appearance by many of the cast’s biggest players, including Turner, Chastain, Fassbender, McAvoy and others.

Overall

The question has emerged whether it was Fox or Disney that has been responsible for the movie’s campaign, particularly in the months since that deal was finalized. Who crafted the direction of the marketing is unclear from the layman’s point of view, but it mostly smells like a Fox production, with the tone and focus similar to how previous entries in the X-Men franchise have been sold. It’s also unlikely that a Disney campaign would include so much emphasis on the history of these movies, particularly since the future of the characters is still being determined.

Picking Up the Spare

Lots of details about production have emerged since the movie hit theaters, including reports the filmmakers initially planned two movies covering the whole story and how extensively poor test screenings contributed to reshoots and changes to some character’s fates. That included the studio and others involved seemingly having learned all the wrong lessons from the troubled production of Apocalypse as well as attempts to move the movie out of the way of Alita: Battle Angel and other releases.

There’s also been lots of discussion about the character played by Chastain, one that was kept secret in the pre-release publicity for no real reason, it seems.

Glass – Marketing Recap

My full recap of the marketing campaign for Glass is up at The Hollywood Reporter, but you can read below for the elements not included in that column.

Online and Social

The official website from Universal does a decent job of offering most of the basic content and information about the movie but never really takes visitors any deeper into the story.

Media and Publicity

A feature profile of Shyamalan covered lots of territory, focusing on how he fell from favor after the initial wave of popularity and buzz but has emerged even stronger than before. Similar topics were covered in another interview and another after that. The connection between this and the earlier movies was reinforced when the director revealed it would feature unused footage from Unbreakable, though he also put the kibosh on further sequels set in the shared world.

Everyone started showing up on late night TV and elsewhere in the last couple weeks, including Jackson and McAvoy. The latter was also announced as the host of an episode of “Saturday Night Live” a couple weeks after the film hit theaters.