Hancock starring Will Smith comes out in about a week and its poster is posted a plenty across NYC. And randomly, an alternate poster can be found advertising the same movie. The alternate ad isn’t as splashed across town as the mainstream one, and instead prefers to be wheatbacked onto construction sites compared to its sealed-in-plastic sister poster. But neither its scarcity or its location is what makes this alternate Hancock ad curious. Its the possible indication that this movie doesn’t know exactly how to market itself.
Is Hancock a comedic superhero romp or a deeper, darker story? Could it be both? Warranting these questions are 2 different posters advertising the same movie, both with a different feel and style than the other. One poster seen all over the city and in theaters (left) features Smith brooding, tight-lipped against the city. The other poster (below) is loose and hipper. It features a leisurely pose and is treated in a slightly rough-sketch form of illustration like ‘A Scanner Darkly’ meets ‘Aeon Flux.’ One ad says “hey, this looks intense” while the other ad says “hey, this looks like it could be fun—whatever it is.”
Despite the differences of the 2 print ads, the question of “what is Hancock (about)?” apparently goes beyond the ad campaign itself and reflects what is being said across the web regarding the last-minute restructuring and editing of the movie in efforts to meet a preferred rating and to focus the story itself. (Read more on at Firstshowing.net, a great movie sites for movie fans) This late in the game to be tweaking the movie, its no wonder 2 opposite ads are working to gain mutual attention in a catch-all marketing attempt. But this is a summer movie whose marketing, ads, tv spots and actor interviews have already begun reaching the public. Even co-star Jason Bateman was on, of all places, Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night to plug Hancock and to inadvertently indicate that there’s not much happening on a Tuesday in June. And when it comes down to it, Will Smith has never had problems selling a movie and already has a track record of dominating the 4th of July box office. Anyways, it’ll be interesting to see if this movie will suffer in the slightest due to Hancocks undecided and convoluted marketing.
. . . My guess is probably not.
2 Comments
July 3, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Hancock looks like interesting spin on the latest superhero movie craze… if nothing else at least Will Smith tends to be pretty funny
July 3, 2008 at 9:07 pm
No doubt; and surprisingly enough, both the New Yorker and NPR gave it very good reviews.