X-Men: Days Of Future Past - Viral Marketing Campaign Builds Momentum

The viral marketing campaign for Bryan Singer's X-Men Days of Future Past is picking up some serious momentum with the recent launch of the excellent Trask Industries website.

The fictional company site delves into the history and mythology of Trask Industries and its creator Bolivar Trask (played by Peter Dinklage - TV's Game of Thrones). The site also explores the creation of the Sentinels from Mark I to X.

Trance (Post-Viewing)

Disclaimer - This article was written after seeing the movie, Trance, and is in reaction to my previous poster analysis article for the film. I have done my very best to avoid spoilers but i cannot guarantee that there aren't any.

Ok, so yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Danny Boyle's latest movie, Trance, and although I felt that the film was slightly too self-indulgent at times, I generally enjoyed it. However, it does give itself far too much credit for trying to deceive the audience, which then requires the audience to suspend all logic and disbelief.

One aspect that is truly commendable though, is the movie poster. A few days ago I wrote an article that critically analysed the poster (seen on the right), attempting to determine potential character traits and basic plot developments using only the image provided.

Trance (Pre-viewing)

Disclaimer - At the time of writing this article I have not seen Trance, therefore this analysis will be written with only a basic knowledge of the premise. Once I have seen the movie, I will write a further article that will critique the overall effectiveness of the poster.





UK Theatrical Poster

Trance is the latest movie from Oscar-winning director, Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later) and stars James McAvoy as Simon, a fine-art auctioneer who becomes embroiled with Frank (Vincent Cassell) in an elaborate plot to steal a valued Goya painting. When Simon betrays Frank, he is knocked unconscious and consequently suffers from amnesia, which prevents him from revealing the location of the painting. Frank ultimately turns to hypnotherapist, Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) in a desperate attempt to unlock the whereabouts of the painting, but all may not be as it seems.

Here is the UK theatrical poster, and at a first glance it is clearly very rich in substance with a sense of intrigue. The image depicts the film's three main stars (McAvoy, Cassell, and Dawson) in very individual poses that seem to reflect major character personality traits.

X-Men: First Class (Part 2 of 2)

Following on from Part 1, this article will focus on two further sets of posters from the X-Men: First Class marketing campaign. Both focus on Professor X and Magneto with the first set taking a slightly more ambiguous silhouetted approach, while the second set is slightly more conventional.

SET ONE

These posters focus on the link between past and present in terms of Professor X and Magneto. In doing so, they highlight to the film's prospective audience which of the actors from the main poster (discussed in Part 1) will be portraying the two iconic mutants.

The posters are largely minimalist, opting for a simple style of black silhouette, representing the older versions of both characters from the original trilogy, on a white background. To make the link between old and new, floating heads of a young Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) have been superimposed onto the silhouettes of the respective characters. This is all well and good... but what about all of the other characters?

X-Men: First Class (Part 1 of 2)

Disclaimer – This article will be split into two parts and will focus on several movie posters into order to provide a detailed analysis…

X-Men: First Class was the sort-of franchise reboot that many hoped would re-ignite the flailing movie franchise. It introduced new characters, and younger versions of iconic characters such as Professor X, Magneto and Beast. However, the purpose of a reboot is generally to reintroduce an entirely new audience to the characters, but when the characters are unfamiliar or, in the case of the iconic ones, look completely different, the marketing strategy must always start from scratch to achieve this.

In the case of this movie poster… Who exactly are these people?