..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Week 9: Publicity Reloaded

We are in the middle of what is turning out to be a long, long summer.  More than any summer before, the rules are changing before our eyes.  Some of it comes from the manifestation of years of “progress.”  Some of it comes from a season in which a majority of the major titles have very strong marketing hooks.  And some of it comes from having more titles that are in the mega-event category than ever before.  Normally, it’s a three mega-event film summer; first weekend of May, week before Memorial Day. July 4 weekend.  This year, some of the biggest titles are in the creases.  And even the creases have become overstuffed. 

With all of these massive movies in play, you can hear the sound of thermometers being crushed every time you try to take a studio’s temperature.   The sphincter tightening leads to saber rattling which, as often as not, leads to the dreaded media backlash… the very result that all the effort was meant to avoid in the first place.

I’m not sure how studios determine the value of their publicity departments in this era.  But, at the risk of being sent a box of swag candy dosed with rat poison, I will make the effort to figure it out. 

The key moment in a movie’s life is now opening weekend.  These weekends are driven by advertising, far more so than any critics, foul or fair.  Tens of millions of dollars in advertising come at you like low impact nukes, designed to seep into your pores, unavoidable, inescapable, the message drawing you to the inevitable conclusion… buy a ticket.

By comparison, critics and entertainment journalists are bullets in the studio gun… bullets that cannot be controlled.  Well, the Earl Dittman bullet can.  But you get the point. 

But here’s the rub.  As in all great action movies, one little bullet can destroy the nuke - or at least divert it – when the gun is in the right hands. 

For years now, the perceived bullet has been “outside forces,” usually the internet, led by Ain’t It Cool News.  Like television and now film piracy, studios have overinflated the threat.  The single bullet only has the power that the studios give it.

Chris Pula, who I revere otherwise, led the way by throwing some blame in Harry Knowles’ direction for the angry reception for Batman & Robin.  But Chris missed the real story, as most continue to do… the crowd that is giving credence to Ain’t It Cool is the audience that lined up to see Batman & Robin, and every other piece of fantasy crap that comes down the pike, because they are committed first-night filmgoers.  B&R’s $43 million opening in 1997 was, then, the sixth best opening in movie history.  It was $10 million less than the opening of Batman Forever.  But that was because of Batman Forever, not Ain’t It Cool News. 

In the years since then, there still has not been a single movie’s box office that anyone can point to and show a significant impact from the buzz of Ain’t It Cool News or any other single media source.  Yet the paranoia continues.

What Ain’t It Cool and other sites have exerted power over, intentionally or not, is a hungry press anxious to find sources, however unsubstantiated, to build a story around in an industry that has very little free flowing information.  DreamWorks rather brilliantly took advantage of the Ain’t It Cool brand of open discussion with an early private screening for Gladiator.  The only downside was fallout from the traditional media, unhappy to be relegated to second-class citizenship.

Various combinations of attack and embrace were used, as studios struggled to find out how to tame the latest threat into the newest tool.  Some studios tightened up and fought to regain control of their privacy.  Others started their own efforts to manipulate the Internet buzz sites.  They realized that if they could place skewed information in these sites -  perceived as the most honest and uncontrolled of all outlets -  that the benefit could be even greater than that of a positive comment from a traditional media outlet.  They were creating word of mouth without giving up any actual control.  The biggest sticking point was not getting caught manipulating the strings. 

But this gamesmanship has had little influence in comparison to evolutionary obsession on opening weekend.  It just keeps growing.  People at studios are now estimating final numbers based on the reports from the first showings on Friday morning.  Of course, there are still major vagaries that cannot be accounted for until the second weekend.  But their significance is lessening every year. 

Maximize the first weekend, my son.  That is the way to the kingdom of box office heaven. 

This brings us back to advertising and advertising dollars.  There is no question.  Saturation marketing can fail.  But when it works, there is nothing like it.   You can’t publicize your way to a $50 million opening weekend, no matter how good the work.  The rule remains the same – opening weekend is not about the film itself – whether the film is great or horrible.  It also remains the same if you have the very best, hardest working publicists in the business or the least so. 

So what role does the part of publicity that is manifested through the press, have?  (The line does get pretty blurry.)  Or, how is the press best used by a studio?

Well, there are many answers.  And I am not a publicist or studio marketer.  But I can read movie tea leaves. 

Studios who are normally quite open and friendly in their handling of the press change dramatically in the full moon of these mega-event films.  They haven’t asked writers to wear ankle bracelets that explode within 20 feet of a computer with a DSL line …yet.

Of course, the jolly junkets remain.  But in terms of challenging the studios, those members of the media have already disarmed themselves by signing The Four Seasons Peace Accord.  But just to be sure, the studios slip tablets of radioactive material in their junket swag that actually turns their corneas a lovely shade of rose. 

Yet, even the junket press is being squeezed, disallowed from bringing guests to their early – and now, often, first ever – screenings of event films.

Other press faces the typical hierarchical issues that come with the territory.  But even some of those who are used to easy access have been pushed off a bit in the new era, with “first” screenings getting closer and closer to the release dates. 

The core issue, in my eyes, is not how to adapt the old system to the new mega-event attitude while rustling the fewest feathers.  It is time to start thinking out of the box and reassessing the entire spectrum of press opportunities.

It no longer feels like the studio publicity departments are given charge of maximizing the opportunity, but rather to shield the major attack by holding down the fort.  They must unleash the hounds of media at the right moment – usually mirroring the ad buy schedule to some degree – in order to maximize the advertising penetration. 

And here is where my argument gets a little schizophrenic. 

The downside of this strategy is that it puts most of the press – the press that has haunches – back on its haunches.  The System has been in place for a long, long time.  And people get used to their positions on the charts.  (I sometimes wonder if there are actual slotting charts in studio marketing offices.  But the rankings would probably be too dangerous to actually put on a piece of paper.  You can be sure that everyone other than #1 with a bullet would complain about their position were it to get loose.)  Any quick movement is treated like a national disaster. 

And so, the pieces of the media puzzle tend to be moved a clique at a time.  Like so much corporate thinking, this is about self-protection.  Rules save publicists, who are generally caught in the middle with any strategic choice, from admitting that they are thinking… and you have to know, they always are. 

But it is a game.  Major magazines and newspapers have become marketing tools posing as journalism… going both ways.  One hand washes the other.  The illusion of integrity still must be maintained.  But the veil gets mighty thin. 

I might say that I was pleased that Time Magazine stayed out of mud on The Hulk by not responding to the Newsweek cover story and writing a brutalization of the film, sight unseen, as has become the sick tradition between the two magazines in recent summers.  But the truth is, they were too busy blowing their corporate horn (amongst other organs) with their Harry Potter cover to both going after Big Green. 

The truth is, Ain’t It Cool News is a press opportunity.  Newsweek is a press opportunity.  E! Online and Off is a press opportunity.  KTLA Morning News is a press opportunity.   Even the NBA Finals have become a press opportunity.  (Again, kind of blurry.)  Is the story safe enough to chase after a Patrick Goldstein column or do you want your talent doing an “op-ed” for the New York Times or do you really need Vanity Fair?  All press opportunities. 

And every thoughtful press person out there is aware of this mélange of media.  (If you are reading MCN, you sure as hell are!)  When a studio shows the slightest inclination to control the media that is so used to getting open access, it’s haunches time.  Refer back to the “excitement vs. prove it” column of a few weeks ago.  Yes, we in the media are responsible for our abhorrent attitude.  But we have been trained by our studio masters. 

It takes a few years to learn the complete code.  I’m still waiting to be let in on the secret handshake.  (I was taught the one from The Gay Mafia - trademark pending, Ovitz Associates – but I couldn’t sit down for a week!!!   Thank you very much!!!  Don’t forget to tip your waitresses.)  But there is a code and those of us who have been around for a little while know it.  And every time it is violated, the attitude bar gets raised.

Worse, there are always leaks that somehow go around the rules and very rarely get exposed or punished.  This is not a good incentive to play by the rules.

There are two ways to play this: studios can tighten things up even more or studios can relax. 

Tightening up is tough.  Possible, but tough.  If it is an idea that is fed and grown early enough, like now for next summer, it could work.  “This is not about the film… it is the new policy.”  Live television and long lead press only for the talent.  Huge premiere event.  Junket on opening weekend. 

Of course, the problem is what you do if the film stiffs and the talent starts breaking down as the weekend progresses.  But the truth is, box office would better be served by a surge of news after a big opening weekend than leading up to the release. 

Okay… maybe it seems like a stupid idea.  I certainly wouldn’t like it.  But it is a possibility.  It is the ultimate control opportunity, short of plugging directly into the brains of individuals. 

Relaxing… ahhh. 

The downside risk is that the vast majority of people will dislike the film and a negative wave will smash up on the shore.  (See: Atlantis)

The obvious upside is a vast majority of positive viewpoints.  (See: Shrek)

But almost as positive would be a balance between mixed negative and mixed positive, with a few extremes.  (See: Most big films.)

That result would give control back to the advertising, since it leaves no definitive answer on the table.  Additionally, it allows for an open and wide ranging conversation about the film as it chugs towards release.  And the exchange of ideas between moviegoers is, ultimately, the most powerful marketing tool in the world.

If critics and entertainment journalists were really that influential, Whale Rider would make $300 million and Daddy Day Care would make $3.  People want to decide for themselves.  And they do.  Until their friends start talking, after having seen the movie. 

I would say that at least 30 percent of people heading into The Hulk this weekend will buy tickets specifically to challenge the quality of the CG Hulk with their own eyes.  Bought it on TV, didn’t buy it on TV… Ebert’s thumb is up, but he didn’t like the desert scenes, so-and-so’s thumb is down, but they did like the desert scenes… it is a massive film and people want to have their own opinions down at the water cooler. 

The other element here is that when you embrace the press, you control the press.  No one wants to admit it, but it’s true.  Leaks in a dike come from pressure on the other side.  If you relieve the pressure, the leaks are reduced to meaningless dribbles. 

Of course, to be the first studio marketing chief to go this way… very dangerous.  And there are lots and lots of other considerations.  If the L.A. Times is more important than the Orange County Register to a studio effort, does giving them equal access demotivate the L.A. Times?  Etc, etc, etc…

But I keep asking myself, how long can the junket system for print writers last if six writers can place six stories in 85% of the world’s newspapers.  How can Warner Bros. go back to time for Matrix Revolutions after Time hung them out to dry the last time?

When will studios recognize that second wave of reflection on films is what caries the day when their advertising budgets run dry?  That’s when the maybe 10% that a critic matters to people starts to have a real impact.  “Should we see the new hot film or finally get into the hot film from three weekends ago?”  “Well, I keep on hearing that Movie X isn’t that good… I don’t really know what the problem was, but let’s see something else…”

It’s a funny thing, arguing that I should get more access so that they can control the machine even more tightly.  We all have our jobs to do.  Mine is to figure out movies and to try to translate them into the grains of a decision for my readers.  Theirs is to sell you this stuff.  A system based on merit and truly individualized ideas of prioritization seems to me to help everyone.  The studios already own the playing field.  Maybe it is time to truly level it, instead of paying lip service to the idea.  A little spinach might do everybody some good.

 

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