Is the movie poster dead?

May 3rd, 2011 | POSTED BY Sean Watson

Action and adventure films, on the other hand, prefer to focus on the contrast between the colours orange and blue in their designs.

The lead character will probably have some kind of weapon; they look like they’re either waiting for, or running towards, a fight; and generally they’ll look intimidating and heroic. Orange and blue are complimentary colours, so when placed together, they’ll make each other appear brighter, creating a vibrant and dynamic image. This is all now fairly standard and predictable; the problem comes, like in the case of I Am Number Four, when they all start to look too similar. If you look at the posters in the top right and left of the above image, you might notice a few similarities. Cowboys & Aliens director Jon Favreau did too, and complained to the producers, Dreamworks, that it could confuse audiences, as his film and I Am Number Four both had a similar sci-fi premise. Dreamworks produced the two films, so it seems like a pretty big mix-up on their end, since surely they’d want all their films to have a distinct tone so the consumer could differentiate between each of their products.

On the DVD commentary for Seven, David Fincher states that he believes that marketing departments treat any completed film that they receive as a failure. It’s a hugely cynical way to treat what you’d imagine to be an artistic position, but be it the next Citizen Kane or the next Little Man, the films are treated exactly the same—as if they’re doomed to failure unless the marketing company jumps into action and picks up the slack. There’s no room for individuality or expression in this. You’d imagine the job of the marketing company is to promote brand identity, to make their movie stand out from the crowd, but the I Am Number Four problem seems to show that it’s not. The vast amount of money involved pressures the films’ marketing departments to take no risks and to recycle previously successful and reliable trends. It only seems to be when a film series gathers enough recognised exposure that the posters begin to rely less on these traits, and begin to experiment with other less seen designs. For instance, in the first poster released for each part of the Bourne franchise:

The Bourne Identity was one of first contemporary action films to use the orange and blue colour choice, and the rest is a fairly standard affair: Matt Damon runs with a gun in hand, a target surrounds him so we know he’s being hunted. The Bourne Supremacy uses another tried and tested trait of the ‘big head,’ in hopes that star appeal will generate sales that the franchise might not do itself. The image of the crosshairs is still present but is now on the rifle, showing the character change from hunted to hunter. (Damon is also doing a Roger Moore-esque raised eyebrow, which isn’t relevant, but I can’t stop staring at it.) By the time The Bourne Ultimatum comes around, you can see the marketing department has much more confidence in the brand and doesn’t fall back on previous gimmicks. No huge Matt Damon Photoshopped head, no gun, no target, no orange and blue—all the poster tells you is that it’s another Bourne film, but this time it’s in New York. It makes a lot of sense. Everybody who went to see Ultimatum expected car chases and Damon to beat a bunch of guys up with a spatula or some shit; the franchise was stable and it allowed the designers to create a less predictable image. It’s not perfect by any means, but at least it’s a bit different. However, without a recognised franchise most marketing designers never have this luxury.

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Avatar, Big Mommas, Cowboys & Aliens, Drew Struzan, I am number four, Jason Bourne, Marketing, Movie posters, Orange and Blue, Red text on White, Saul Bass, The Thing, The Unborn