In an age of streaming and Covid concerns when many older-skewing dramatic films find their way safely into homes, Sony Pictures rolled the dice on the Tom Hanks drama A Man Called Otto. It grossed $15.3 million in its third–weekend wide expansion over the four-day MLK weekend, well surpassing its $8M projection. The result surprised
Marketing
EXCLUSIVE: James Wan has been labeled by fans for being responsible for killer doll movies, specifically his Conjuring franchise spinoff, Annabelle. “It’s funny, I really hadn’t done that yet,” says the horror auteur. And that was his prime reason to create M3GAN with screenwriter Akela Cooper. “In my previous doll movies — they don’t kill
EXCLUSIVE: Buttressing the $441.6M global opening of Avatar: The Way of Water this past weekend –the 11th best ever– is a curated promo partner campaign assembled by Disney; a lineup that reflects the eco-friendly and technologically advanced sensibilities of the James Cameron directed epic. All in, the value of media which advertisers paid for here
The fruits of Disney’s industry-reported $100M+ promotional partner campaign on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever have been yielded, not just in a November U.S./Canada box office opening record of $181.3M and 12.7M admissions but in stoking a diverse range of demographics including Black, Latino/Hispanic and older women to cinemas in droves this past weekend. The media
EXCLUSIVE: Blumhouse revealed a new motion logo this weekend on their new horror movie, The Black Phone, which overpowered in its 3-day debut to $23.6 million. The new logo preceded the Scott Derrickson directed, produced and co-written film and it’s the studio’s first ever update to its motion logo. The logo was created by design studio
EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures is putting forth the biggest promotional campaign to date during the pandemic for any major studio wide release with Spider-Man: No Way Home; the global brand marketing value seeing $202M and a billion-plus reach. While that dollar figure is the second highest for a Sony webslinger movie after 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home
Imax has named former Lionsgate and Netflix publicity veteran Julie Fontaine as SVP Marketing in what is a newly created position at the large-format exhibitor. She will report directly to Imax chief marketing officer Denny Tu. Fontaine will oversee strategic marketing campaigns and creative for Imax’s global event features lineup as well as product and
At the exit to a gallery in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is a display of opinions about the future of cinema. For example: “THE FUTURE OF CINEMA IS INCLUSION NOT EXCLUSION” –Kimberly Steward
Among film distribution executives in town, there’s a saying about Disney’s theatrical releases, in particular their Marvel titles: That they’re “five quad” movies. What does that mean? Essentially, the Marvel Cinematic Universe titles are known to overindex and perform well beyond the norms of a regular four quadrant demographic tentpole which is aimed at male
One thing is clear after we’ve endured a 19-month pandemic: The world now, more than ever, needs James Bond. And not just movie theaters, and concession industries, but an assortment of brands from Madison Avenue which have seen sales curtailed during lockdown, in particular the auto industry which continues to see production slowed due to
When it came to assembling the brand sponsors for Disney’s Cruella, it wasn’t about the dogs in the 101 Dalmatians live-action spinoff, or the swanky Panther De Ville car she drove in the 1990s Glenn Close movies, rather the glitz which the Emma Stone and Emma Thompson characters are all about. While recent brand campaigns for Disney+’s
EXCLUSIVE: The first online teaser trailer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s third phase 4 movie Eternals has drawn an almighty 77 million global viewers in its first 24 hours since dropping Monday per social analytic sources. That’s the biggest online trailer drop for a Walt Disney and Marvel movie in the past 14 months of
EXCLUSIVE: Motion picture industry distribution veteran Jim Zak has been named SVP North America of Vista Group’s Numero and Maccs. He will be based in Los Angeles and report to Numero and Maccs chief executive and Numero co-founder Simon Burton. Zak will work across both Numero and Maccs, with primary responsibility for expanding the client
A major acceleration of Hollywood studio and travel advertising could inject up to 10% in incremental ad spending on national television in the second half of 2021, spending that won’t be present this year, according to the latest forecast by Group M. National TV ad spend will fall by 7.9% this year but next year
EXCLUSIVE: Despite the severe ratcheting down of movie theaters during the pandemic in recent weeks, Universal is standing strong with a robust global promotional campaign behind its DreamWorks Animation sequel The Croods: A New Age which opens today at 2,211 theaters. While the marketing spend on domestic wide releases has been in the single-digit range
Not to send everyone screaming for the exits, but it wouldn’t be out of the question if Warner Bros. moves Wonder Woman 1984 off its Christmas Day global theatrical release. Facts are facts whether former Vice President Joe Biden takes the U.S. Presidency tomorrow night or if President Donald Trump continues: New York City and Los
What a great time not to be a movie marketer. Theaters half-closed, with COVID-19 again rising. Pipeline dried up. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asking, in a survey that was due last week, how the pandemic is affecting your craft. Or what’s left of it. But movie promoters on the whole are an
Talk about box-office drama. As the July 4 weekend unwinds, IFC’sThe Truth might be slugging it out with Homewrecker from Dark Star and The Outpost from Fathom for the honor of ranking somewhere in the 300s, near IFC’s own Wiener-Dog, among all-time Independence Day performers. (Who can say for sure, as release dates have become
When you’re doing a movie trailer launch nowadays and need to grab everyone’s attention, it helps to throw a concert. Universal’s trailer for F9 (aka Fast & Furious 9), since dropping its near four-minute trailer on Friday ahead of the Super Bowl, has clocked a massive 439.3 million global views across YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. And
Danielle De Palma has been hired as Paramount Pictures’ EVP Domestic Marketing. She will report to Marc Weinstock, president of Worldwide Marketing & Distribution, and Mary Daily, co-president of Worldwide Marketing & Distribution. Previously, De Palma served as a senior executive at Apple in the video marketing team overseeing film and TV series marketing. She
Typically when it comes to raising the profile on a major studio horror film, studio’s will rest on the standard online trailer, or some sort of social media stunt. However, Warner Bros. has amassed around 35 global promotional partners for New Line’s Sept. 6 tentpole It: Chapter Two, which is arguably unprecedented for a R-rated