Commentary: A Reaction to the shift in Tentpole Movie Marketing in Hollywood

Last week, Variety published a brief article about the state of film marketing in Hollywood. The fascinating piece explored the thought-provoking notion that concept is now bigger than star-power, which indicates a major shift in the necessity of A-List stars fronting big-budget blockbusters.

"The idea is to sell a film initially based on a concept", says Par domestic marketing and distrib prexy Megan Colligan.

Main theatrical poster for Oblivion

Ten years ago it would have been unfathomable for Tom Cruise not to feature in almost the entire marketing campaign for his latest blockbuster; however, times have changed.

Coming off the back of his biggest success to-date (Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol), Cruise's next major release was Oblivion, a big budget sci-fi film from the director of Tron:Legacy. There was immense pressure on Cruise to deliver another major hit and reassert his dominance as an unrivalled global box-office star. However, this was somewhat contradicted by his presence within the marketing campaign being strangely understated.

New Man of Steel poster released

A new theatrical poster for Man of Steel has been released as Warner Bros. begin their final major marketing push before the reboot's high profile 14th June 2013 opening.

This one is fairly generic, depicting Superman flying at a speed beyond all comprehension, but sadly not much else.

The most intriguing aspect of this poster is the motion contrast between Superman and the city below. The blurring and sun-glare compliment the bright colour-scheme and really emphasise the immense power of the Man of Steel. However, the image is simply too visually jarring to be effective.

Man of Steel

Ok, so this poster has been in circulation for a while now and after seeing the trailers, we know that this image will be at least be semi-relevant to the film, Man of Steel. However, I can't help but feel that it's an unusual choice to kick-start a major marketing campaign, especially for a film that focuses on one of the most iconic superheroes of all time, Superman.

Opinion has been well and truly divided with regard to this poster and rightly so… Superman is in handcuffs! Who wants to see that right?

At a first glance the imagery seems to show nothing positive in terms of character or story, and there's nothing to get overly excited about if Superman is unable to use his abilities whatsover, which raises obvious questions:

- Why doesn’t Superman just break free?
- Why is he in custody?
- Are they kryptonite handcuffs?
- Is he a vigilante?
- Are the humans afraid of him?