Tag: wes anderson

asteroid city – marketing recap

How Focus Features has sold its latest highly-stylized dramedy

Asteroid City movie poster from Focus Features
Asteroid City movie poster from Focus Features

Writer/director Wes Anderson is back with another immaculately-framed dry comedy with this week’s Asteroid City.

The story focuses on the events that occurred at the fictional Asteroid City, which gets its name from the huge crater it sits in, and the youth astronomy convention taking place there. That convention is interrupted by the arrival of an actual UFO, which leads to a military quarantine that traps everyone in attendance there for a while. Romance, the exposure of secrets and more ensue. But in typical Anderson style, the story is told half in flashbacks and half via a play written by one of the characters who experienced it all about what unfolded.

Many of Anderson’s usual troupe are here, including Jason Schwartzman, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton and others who join newcomers including Tom Hanks, Maya Hawke and Margot Robbie, the top-line cast too numerous to list individually.

With the caveat that the movie has already been released in Los Angeles and New York City but is now in wider release, let’s look at how Focus Features has sold it to the public.

announcement and casting

Casting announcements began coming fast and furious, each name bigger and often more unexpected than the last, in July 2021, when Anderson’s The French Dispatch was premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. Swinton and Bill Murray were first followed by Hanks, Robbie, Johansson, Friend and Schwartzman, Ryan and others.

Focus Features acquired the film in July 2022, one of the only times Anderson hasn’t worked with Searchlight Pictures. That announcement came with the news Murray had dropped out of the project, reportedly because he contracted Covid just before filming was set to start but also around the time the actor was receiving backlash for his inappropriate behavior on other productions.

A June 203 release date was set by the studio in November of last year.

the marketing campaign

The names of the impressive cast is a key component of the first poster, released at the end of March. Alongside that list is a billboard for Asteroid City placed next to a highway winding through the desert mountains, the elements combining to hint at the meta nature of the story.

Right after that the first trailer (608,000 YouTube video plays) came out. We get the premise of the story, that Augie Steenbeck (Schwartzman) is visiting Asteroid City with his family for the convention along with a handful of other colorful characters. That convention is interrupted by the arrival of an alien, but we don’t actually see said alien or get any hints as to the play-within-a-movie or anything else outside of the primary real-time storyline. But the main point here is to present this as a Wes Anderson Movie, with all the quirks that designation comes with, and it succeeds on that front.

Just a few weeks later the announcement came that the movie was an official selection for this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Another one-sheet came out in early May, this one putting all the characters on bleachers for the event they’ve all gathered for, the use of the actors being a different value proposition for the audience than simply Anderson’s aesthetic.

Tensions between the civilians and soldiers begin to boil over in the first clip, given exclusively to Indiewire. Additional clips released around this time, mid-May, showed Steenbeck meeting Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) and Sandy Borden (Hope Davis) having a conversation with Campbell.

There were profiles of and interviews with Grace Edwards and Rupert Friend, both newcomers to Anderson’s films, in the lead-up to the Cannes screening, which itself generated a bevy of interviews with the cast and profiles of the director’s customs when it comes to the festival.

That Cannes screening generated mostly positive reviews from attendees who praised Anderson’s style as well as his storytelling technique.

At the end of May Landmark Theaters announced a movie-themed pop-up experience in Los Angeles that would take people inside the world of the movie and offer exclusive swag and other material. Alamo Drafthouse would also produce its own experiential event in New York City, timed with the mid-June premiere of the movie there.

There was a set of posters released that put some of the characters in front of a different location within Asteroid City.

Focus Features worked with popular social network Letterboxd on a scavenger hunt across its site, with the winner getting a private screening of the movie.

TV advertising along with online pre-roll began in early June after tickets were on sale, with most of the commercials and promos focusing more on the style of the film along with the cast instead of the story itself.

Around the middle of the month the cast members began doing publicity for the movie, including appearances on morning talk shows, additional profiles and press interviews and lots more.

The making of the movie was captured in a featurette that included a look at how Asteroid City was created as a mix of real elements and miniatures along with other elements of the production design. Another focused on the filming of a single sequence involving the characters played by Hawke and Friend. The costume design got its own video as well.

Additional clips came out regularly to offer extended looks at certain elements of the story or characters.

More character posters also came out just days ago.

overall

Much of what’s been executed here is exactly what you’d expect for a Wes Anderson film in terms of visuals and even performances.

What jumps out at me is something I also noticed in the campaigns for other recent movies from the director, especially The French Dispatch a couple years ago. Specifically that in-person experiential events that bring people into the world created by the director are an increasingly large element of these efforts. That speaks not only to Anderson’s obsession with creating something unique that has to be lived in to some extent but how the style and designs he’s become so well known for dominate the appeal the movies are seen to have for the audience.

picking up the spare

Focus Features released footage of Bill Murray in the film before the part was recast.

the french dispatch – marketing recap

How Searchlight Pictures has sold a symmetrical literary movie from a symmetrical literary filmmaker.

The French Dispatch poster

There’s been a startling – and disappointing – lack of hot takes about how The French Dispatch is opening the same weekend as Dune means a showdown between two filmmakers who, unlike many assigned that title by studio marketing departments, can truly be called visionary. Dune’s Denis Villeneuve creates stark, massively scaled backdrops for the characters to perform within, while Wes Anderson is known for creating detailed, symmetrical dollhouse rooms that are just as quirky and slightly dingy as the characters inhabiting them.

(Both of those movies also star Timothée Chalamet, which in and of itself is…wow…)

Anderson’s films have always carried highly literary themes. Playwrights abound in his films and characters are always journaling, sending cables or handwritten letters or writing books about their experiences. Now he brings those themes to the fore with what’s been described by him and others as “a love letter” to journalists and magazine writers.

At the center of the story is The French Dispatch, a magazine modeled after The New Yorker. Edited by Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray), the periodical has a number of writers, illustrators, photographers and writers, each of whom are followed in their own sub-stories. Playing those contributors are Anderson regulars like Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Angelica Huston, Edward Norton and others, with Elisabeth Moss, Léa Seydoux, Timothée Chalamet and others joining in the highly-stylized hijinks as well.

announcements and casting

Initial news about the movie came in mid-2018, with initial reports saying Anderson was developing a musical comedy set in France. The casting of Tilda Swinton and Mathieu Amalric was announced at that time with most of the rest of the principle cast joining in the last months of 2018.

Plot details were revealed in September 2019 at the same time Fox Searchlight announced it had acquired the film. A few months later in January 2020 a release date in July of that year was announced.

the first try at marketing

In February 2020 the first set of exclusive photos debuted in, of all places, The New Yorker.

The poster released at that time is so on-brand for an Anderson film it hurts a little. Illustrated by Spanish artist Javi Aznarez (whose work is seen in the movie as well), it displays the offices of the titular magazine as quirky drawings, the faux French city it’s based in seen in the background. Each of the top-billed cast is shown and named here.

The first trailer (5.5m YouTube views) came out at that time as well. It starts by introducing us to Arthur Howitzer Jr. and his publication, The French Dispatch, intended to share stories of interest about politics, culture and more. After briefly meeting some of the people who work at the Dispatch the trailer shifts to showing us the three stories being covered by the magazine and which the movie will follow. What’s shown is an assortment of dry wit, colorful quirkiness and odd characterizations that are part and parcel in Anderson’s work and therefore immediately attractive to anyone who’s a fan of the filmmaker’s.

While reports abounded that the movie would premiere at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival that wound up not happening because the festival itself didn’t happen save for a scaled-back virtual event.

Cinematographer Robert Yeoman was interviewed about the books and movies Anderson put together as a reference library for the cast and crew to use.

There was a feature profile of Chalamet in October 2020 that covered the actor’s role in this film as well as his rise to stardom over the last few years, including comments from Anderson.

At this point Disney/Searchlight pulled the movie from its release schedule for the time being while the pandemic continued to cause uncertainty and delays across the board.

a second attempt at marketing

Things picked back up in May of this year when a new release date was announced along with the news it had been selected to screen at both the Cannes Film Festival and New York Film Festival

Details on the film’s soundtracks, always a highlight of Anderson’s work, were released in early June.

During the Cannes press cycle, which included the cast arriving to the screening in a party bus, Wilson was interviewed about his decades-long collaboration with Anderson and how original he feels this latest movie is. That cycle also produced a much-circulated meme using a photo of Anderson and the three primary leads.

A clip was released at the same time showing Zeffirelli soliciting feedback on his manifesto.

Costar Henry Winkler, a newcomer to the Anderson troupe, spoke about the movie on “Late Night” in July.

In early August Searchlight revealed fans could sign up to receive an actual issue of the titular newsletter, with a video promoting the newsletter released showing the cast flipping through it and reacting to its contents.

August also brought a new poster, this one showing the massive cast assembled via obviously cut-out photos pasted together into a collage.

A number of short videos came out around that time that each focused on stories for the paper being filed by the various reporters and writers. There were videos from Sazerac, Berensen, Krementz and Wright.

Anderson begins a featurette by explaining just exactly what the movie is and what format it takes. Murray, Wilson and others from the cast also appear to introduce their characters and offer insights into what those characters add to the story.

The producers and production designers were profiled here about how they went about creating that signature Anderson look of symmetry and scale.

A set of character posters all featured those characters standing or sitting in a pose that hints at who they are and what they do, with the design background helping to communicate their actual background.

An Anderson-directed video for “Aline” came out toward the end of September to keep things going and hint at what the rest of the soundtrack would sound like.

New York’s MoMA held a screening of all 10 of Anderson’s films, including this one, over 10 consecutive nights at the beginning of October.

How the set designers, costumers and others created the world of the movie was covered in this profile of the technical aspects of production.

Murray and others appeared at the BFI London Film Fest screening of the movie earlier this month. The same kind of pop-up cafe experience was also staged in London around this time. The film also screened at the Chicago International Film Festival.

A featurette that focused on the eclectic and impressive cast was released last week. Another had that cast talking about bonding on set and how Anderson creates a family-like atmosphere during filming.

TV spots like this finally started running just days before the film’s release, selling little about the story but instead communicating both the cast and the very Anderson-like tone and look.

Also in New York City, Searchlight launched another pop-up cafe experience where visitors could come by and immerse themselves in a small bit of the film’s world.

overall

If a Wes Anderson movie campaign communicates that it’s for a Wes Anderson movie and contains all the necessary elements – dry line delivery, balanced imagery, clever illustrations, unique use of aspect ratios etc – then it can objectively be considered successful. After all, this is not going to bring in many converts. Instead it’s meant to speak primarily to Anderson die-hards who are already on board with the director’s style.

Wes Anderson Applause GIF by Searchlight Pictures - Find & Share on GIPHY

Isle of Dogs – Marketing Recap

isle of dogs poster 3Writer/director Wes Anderson returns to the world of stop-motion animation – previously visited in 2009’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox – with this week’s new release Isle of Dogs. The story takes place in the Japan of the future, one where the nation has become overrun by dogs, many of whom are sick from a flu-like disease running through the canine population. To maintain public health, all the dogs are sent to an island of trash floating out in the ocean.

One young boy named Atari (Koyu Rankin) is distraught and so puts together the kind of plan that can only exist in a Wes Anderson film to rescue his beloved dog Spots (Liev Schreiber). When he arrives on the island he has trouble finding Spots, though. Thankfully he receives the help of other dogs who recognize what he’s trying to do, including Rex (Edward Norton), Chief (Bryan Cranston) and others, all while ducking the government authorities who want the embarrassing incident brought to a close.

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