And I thought the US movie poster for Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales was pretty bad, now check out the UK one-sheet. I showed it to one of my friends who knew nothing about the movie. She was confused and asked me why Seann William Scott is pictured twice. The answer is that he plays twin brothers. But it’s confusing to the unknowing audience. And not to mention, it’s ugly. But maybe this is the type of poster that you have to look at a few times to understand, much like the movie…
source: Empire
October 12th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I’m always a fan of /Film’s commentary, but this one seems a little unjustified. Donnie Darko wasn’t a film that’s easy to categorize and this one doesn’t look like it is either. It simply could be that the studios don’t know how to market it. While Sean William Scott and The Rock teaming up again doesn’t give me a good feeling I think this is one of those “wait and see” films.
October 12th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Yeah… because all movie poster give you a plot synopsis.
What does the Poster for Lions for Lambs, No Country for Old Men, or American Gangster really tell you? Other then who is in the film…
Come On… to me it seems that you kinda got-it in for putting this movie down ever since they started promoting it a month ago. And if it’s that important that each film have the plot completely covered on their poster, then maybe you should start writing the same comments for every poster you blog, because no poster I’ve every seen has had a plot synopsis attached.
I happen to like this poster. And I think it does it’s job well… getting my attention.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I’m very excited to see Southland Tales, loved Donnie Darko, and have talked to Richard Kelly a few times. That said, I think the marketing for this film is one of the reasons why the movie won’t perform at the box office. Remember, I predicted this before it happened.
And it must also be noted that The Guy is a hardcore Southland Tales fan, and there is nothing wrong with that. But there is one thing to be a fan and the other to be a non-think-for-yourself-cheerleader. Listen man, it’s okay to admit that the marketing material so far kinda sucks, you’re not putting down Richard Kelly or his film. The marketing material for Donnie Darko was the sole reason the film failed in theaters, and I believe even Richard has admitted this publicly (correct me if I’m wrong…). The honest to god truth is that this poster won’t sell this movie to anyone who isn’t already interested in the film. Therefor, it is not effective. Also, because all the photos are actual photos and not a poster illustration it looks very amateurish. I have friends that could probably create something that looks better giving them one hour in photoshop.
Again, you have to look at this not as a fan of Kellys or Southland Tales, but as the normal moviegoing audience. You need to look at this as a 17-year old high school girl or a college football player, or a guy that works serving food at the mall pretzel cart. And I’m pretty sure this poster (or the american version for that matter, which I admit is far better in comparison) does not do the job of convincing an unknowing person into buying a ticket.
But let’s wait and see what this film does at the box office. Maybe I’m totally offbase and wrong. I hope this movie does well. I hope it far exceeds expectations. But with this marketing, I doubt it.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Thanks for responding Peter. I do believe that the film will struggle at the box office, although I believe that the awareness of Donnie Darko will certainly increase its chances of a bigger box office opening weekend than Darko. In retrospect, it was the word of mouth about Darko that made me check it out anyway. Although I have the poster plastered on the wall, it’s surely not a great representation of what the film offers in the way of story.
To sum up: Southland will assuredly not be a box office behemoth. However, I’m looking forward to great storytelling by Richard Kelly and here’s to hoping we have another great cult classic to check out.
October 12th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
“non-think-for-yourself-cheerleader”
So I guess I don’t even know my own opinion… by the way, I have already read the script for Southland Tales(twice), so I think I’ve got a very good idea on what it’s about– which does make my opinion bias– but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t say “This Poster Sucks” if I thought it sucked. I happen to think the poster conveys what almost every poster released now-a-days say’s, who is in the film and a few images from that film.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
TheGuy, I have yet to hear you say one even minor critical complaint about the film or marketing. So you’re saying that everything is 10% perfect?
October 12th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Yes… haha.
No, there are a few things about the film that I’m worried about(such as some of the casting and some of the visual effects toward’s the end of the film), but I also don’t feel the need to put things down for trivial reasons.
Like, this poster doesn’t tell me everything about the film, so I hate it.
October 13th, 2007 at 1:54 am
I actually think that this poster is much, much, better then the american one.
October 13th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Wow what a crappy poster. :) Can’t say it inspires me to see the movie, at all. The trailer, however, did.
October 13th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
My take: if any studio is relying solely on a poster to get people to see their film, the film’s probably a lost cause. Let’s face it: a lot of movies have context and that isn’t always easy to capture in a poster.
A movie with a title like “Southland Tales” can turn people off if they don’t know what the film is based on anyway, and, in that case, a poster is probably not going to help. People tend to form a lot of opinions about films based on their title because their automatic “genre categorizer” comes into play. This is just personal observation based on my admittedly non-scientific tracking of movie stats, but I’ve noticed that movies that don’t seem to fit well into the “blink” idea of being able to categorize the genre tend to do somewhat poor: this is whether the film is horror, sci-fi, romantic comedy, whatever.
Again, I’m not claiming that as fact and I certainly haven’t done some cross correlation with posters to determine if they had any effect. But, if I had to guess, I would say they probably don’t. My feeling is that by the time people see posters in too great a quantity where they would actually have to make a decision based on it, they’ve probably already been exposed to word-of-mouth, critical review, or trailers.
October 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
the kind of people who’d go to see a movie based on the marketing probably aren’t the kind who’d enjoy this movie, anyway.
October 14th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Um, I like it…
October 15th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
For a movie poster that sucks, it sure got many of you talking about it. You all must be poster collectors or designers. For the record, it could be better. However, the trailer made me want to see this movie.