Gary Dretzka
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Ray Pride

Week Three…

There is a classic saw about big movies… when things go good, it's production's win… when things go bad, it's always marketing's fuck up.

Of course, blame can be appropriately (and inappropriately) parceled out on every movie that doesn't pass $200 million. But while marketing and publicity get more than their share of heat most of the time, they usually do not deserve much blame… especially this summer.

Van Helsing and Troy were both major challenges for their respective marketing teams. Neither film had a box office star that could be expected to generate more than $10 million or so in box office on their own. Both films were period films. Troy had an R to contend with and an MPAA that would never allow its most saleable feature, Brad Pitt's bare ass, on TV or in trailers. Van Helsing had heavy accents, some much-worse-than-Hulk CG, and established characters that were not rendered in their classic, recognizable forms.

Oh yeah… and they kinda sucked.

In spite of these limitations, both films opened. Neither did record business, in no small part clearing the way for Shrek 2, the first sequel or franchise of the summer, to break records itself. Troy is running a little ahead of Van Helsing so far, after opening a few million behind, but neither film should be expected to pass $130 million because you can't market word-of-mouth.

Today seems like a good day to discuss summer movie marketing as it falls between the last great 18-34 multi-demo advertising buy of the summer (unless a big new surprise hit launches), American Idol and the successful opening of the dreadful The Day After Tomorrow.

First, the American Idol pre-show was co-hosted by the I-really-am-past-the-age-where-my-boobs-look-great-in-a-halter-without-a-bra Garfield star, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Then there were spots for a dozen summer movies, only one for a film currently in release. No one was selling an August movie yet. The latest release being advertised was July 23rd's Catwoman. In terms of major releases between now and then, the only films without spots were, in reverse order of release date; The Bourne Supremacy, I, Robot, White Chicks, Dodgeball, Around The World in 80 Days, Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban and Raising Helen.

The only "missing" spots that really stuck out were The Bourne Supremacy, I, Robot and Around The World in 80 Days, though Bourne opens on the same date as Catwoman, so it is understandable that Universal was comfortable waiting and I, Robot was probably a victim of a decision by Fox to only spend so much. Around The World, which opens in less than three weeks is selling hard to kids and I'm not sure whose budget ads are coming out of on this Crusader Entertainment pick-up. Disney's The Village, which opens later than anything that did advertise, is already advertising aggressively, but didn't really need to spend the money last night.

American Idol would have truly been the Super Bowl, in terms of cost, for two small budget films that could have made a major impact on the show last night; New Line's Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle and Fox Searchlight's Napoleon Dynamite. A small quality drama would not have made much sense. But in a summer with too few comedies to service the audience's appetite, either or both films would have made for audacious ad buy choices.

In terms of what did run, they were, by running time and then, in order of placement:

15s for Soul Plane and The Day After Tomorrow
30s for Catwoman, The Stepford Wives, Garfield, Anchorman, King Arthur, A Cinderella Story, Shrek 2, The Chronicles of Riddick and Spider-Man 2
A 60 for The Terminal

By studio, DreamWorks led with 2 spots and 1:30 of time, WB had two spots in 1:00 and Fox had two spots in :45. MGM, Paramount, Disney, Universal and Columbia each had one spot.

The standouts, in terms of being spots that should have awareness impact were King Arthur, which pretty much unveils the campaign and the Pirates-esque line from Keira Knightley; Anchorman, which cleverly avoids putting Will Farrell behind an anchor desk; A Cinderella Story, which is also a kind of first look and combines Hilary Duff's perkiness and Jennifer Coolidge's botox; and Universal's Riddick spot, which is the first time I recall hearing what should be a very important line in selling the film, "I am the monster."

It was kind of amazing to see how much each film got in with just 30 seconds. There was not a single spot that didn't get across the central message of the marketing campaign, though there were degrees of quality. The most concerning spot was for The Stepford Wives, which is still selling the movie as a thriller when just last night the film's star, Nicole Kidman, was on Letterman proclaiming that the film was an out and out comedy. But hey… they have 15 days to get that together.

On the other side of American Idol is the great marketing story of the year, Fox's The Day After Tomorrow. I pointed out most of the details yesterday in my review of the film, but the still positive buzz on the movie and the :15 that ran on Idol was one of the strongest spots of the night… priceless. The best Memorial Day 4-day in history is $90 million. The fourth best is Mission: Impossible 2's $71 million. The Day After Tomorrow should come in right in between the two. And they did it in spite of the film. Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations… I can't really say it enough.

Week Three: Boxoffice Chart | Buzz Chart
Week Two | Boxoffice Chart | Buzz Chart
Week One | Boxoffice Chart
The Summer Preview

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