Condemning movies because of marketing
By Cazzy Lewchuk, Staff Writer
Today, more than ever, the anticipation for a movie is almost as much fun as actually seeing it. Photos, plot details, and trailers advertising the latest big-budget franchise cause discussion and hype, ensuring the movie will gross a cool $800 million. However, significant backlash is also often caused by the marketing, often before anything significant is even known about the movie.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is one of the most anticipated films of all time. Ever since its announcement, fans couldn’t wait to see the two biggest superheroes duke it out on the big screen. But every single reveal about it has caused anger and condemnation by a majority of the fan base. Nobody wants Ben Affleck as Batman. Nobody wants Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Nobody wants to see Wonder Woman and Aquaman be part of the plot. This backlash was before there was any plot detail or even photos of the cast revealed. Fans simply assumed there was no way a movie could succeed if it didn’t fulfill all of their fantasies.
Sometimes, judging movie details is justified. When a fourth Indiana Jones movie was announced, there was skepticism every step of the way, and the final movie never did rise to the status of the first three.
However, a lot of movies turn out much better than their marketing implies. When Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker, there was a huge protest against casting a heartthrob as our beloved psycho. In the end, his performance is remembered as one of the best portrayals ever—it even won him a posthumous Oscar (extremely rare for a superhero film). In fact, Ledger’s performance helped audiences take superhero movies seriously. Perhaps his role is part of the reason we have such high standards for them nowadays.
Today’s hottest movies are based off comic books and toy companies. The franchises were originally designed for children to consume with ridiculous amounts of popcorn. When there are significantly developed characters or “serious” plots, it’s a nice bonus, but a movie can still succeed without them.
Marketing is only designed to get people talking about a movie. The latest reveal of the Joker is a single picture—and his tattooed, Juggalo-esque design has caused much outrage. His starring movie, Suicide Squad will not be released for 15 months, and we have no idea how Jared Leto (another Oscar winner) will portray him. Perhaps it’ll be a terrible movie. Hopefully, it’ll be a fun explosion-packed adventure about the exploits of villains. But regardless of what a single promo shot has told us, I’ll still go see it, and so will 99.9 per cent of the fans crying foul on the Internet. And because it’s a major superhero movie, it’ll still gross big bucks at the box office. And in the end, isn’t that what all the studios care about?
