Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Marketing Movies - Update


So seems that's America where marketing reflects their society. Please check the trailer that was recently released in UK, surely and clearly sells a gay drama.



--end of update--

Marketing can make or kill a movie and now that we are in Oscar season strange things start to happen like for example what a distributor is doing to the movie A Single Man that recently released a second trailer that totally removes the gayness from the plot. Take a look at both trailers.

Trailer issued by Tom Ford's production company



Trailer issued by the distributor



So, what do you think??? Isn't terrible what marketing can do??? Did you noticed that in the second trailer they removed Colin's character two lovers actors names from the credits?! And if you watch the second trailer in Youtube and read the info you will notice that it does not say a thing about this movie being totally gay.

I don't think that issuing a de-gaying trailer will help the film with the homophobic Academy members, meaning, will not increase or decrease its chances. Colin Firth already has buzz for best actor, so perhaps they are trying to get buzz for Moore like they claim in the trailer. Haven't seen the film but if they are trying to break the Brokeback Mountain Oscar curse, it will not be by pretending that this film is not gay.

Sigh.

5 comments

On December 26, Rich said...
I've been watching this whole multiple trailer thing for a while - and it is pretty depressing that the feeling was they couldn't build an audience without obfuscating the content.

It's hard for me to believe it's a play to fool Academy voters, as you'd have to think they'd figure it out when watching the movie. :-)

My guess it's more to bring audiences into the theaters who otherwise might be turned off by the concept of seeing a "gay" film. At the end of the day I hope people do go see the movie even if the trailer is misleading. I have seen the movie - it's very good and Colin Firth's performance is amazing. Personally I think trailers tend to give too much of the story away most of the time anyway. ;-)

On November 13, Storyteller said...
Bella, when you have a distribution deal with a major player, most of the time you lose control of your movie. I know many stories about filmmakers losing ALL control of their award winning film... but is a learning curve and new filmmakers have to pay their dues in this very money-oriented industry. Sigh.

On November 13, Bella said...
Very misleading trailer. Why did Tom Ford agreed on this?!

On November 11, Storyteller said...
gee, now you have a purpose... lol!

On November 11, Chaos said...
Too bad we can't do editing in real life :)
I'd love to de-straight some peoples lives ;)