I’m writing this on Sunday, February 18th days after Bob Marley: One Love and Madame Web opened. It must be noted that this is the seventh weekend of the year and only the second one that had two major new wide releases (the other was Mean Girls and The Beekeeper). Bob Marley: One Love is tracking now to make a very solid 45ish million for the six-day week from Valentine’s Day on Wednesday through Presidents Day Monday. Things are not going as well for Madame Web which is managing half that number or around 22-24 million.
But Madame Web comes on the heels of Lisa Frankenstein’s historically disastrous opening week, which comes on the heels of Argylle’s incredibly bad 17.4 million opening.
But I’m not here to talk about Hollywood just making bad movies. Of course they can keep doing that, especially in the early year dumping ground. I want to talk about marketing, because a lot of recent marketing has been simply atrocious and far more misleading than in the recent past, and I think moviegoers are sick of it.
Spoilers to follow for Madame Web.
I’ll start with Madame Web, which I haven’t seen yet. But I’ve read a lot of reviews and in addition to critiquing basically all of the film, especially Sony for putting it out in this state, there’s a strong sense of being lied to. When the trailer dropped, it went semi-viral for looking very bad from a special effects standpoint. From what I’ve heard, this isn’t fixed. But it also lies to viewers. The trailer—and especially the 30-second TV spots—prominently features Sydney Sweeney and others as a new superhero spider team. And, from what I’ve heard, this doesn’t happen except as premonitions about a possible future.
I think this goes beyond the somewhat tolerated embellishment that frequently happens in trailers because this is telling audiences the wrong genre of movie. The trailer presents the film as a superhero origins movie for multiple characters all of which will get powers and come into their superhero own. And then it doesn’t do that. That’s a pretty egregious lie.
It’s not the only time in recent weeks. Lisa Frankenstein “helped” deliver the worst Superbowl weekend box office in 30 years in large part on marketing. I haven’t seen this one yet either, but the reviews have been incredibly mixed. Some people absolutely love this movie and some people have hated it. But, again, a common refrain I’ve heard is that it was less comedic and more dark and unexpected than the trailer presented. The fastest way to be disappointed is to not have your expectations met, even if the actual thing is still really good. If people wanted a comedy, were sold the movie as a comedy, and then didn’t get a comedy, that’s a problem, and it’s going to hurt your word of mouth.
I should probably talk about Argylle here, too. I have seen Argylle and will take some pride in sussing out from the trailer that it would probably be bad. It was bad, one of the most “how can this be so bad?” train wrecks of a movie I’ve seen in a long time. And one of many reasons it’s bad is that it’s not at all the movie the trailer made it out to be. The trailer felt like Adaptation mixed with a spy movie, where the lines of fiction and reality might blur in interesting ways. It made it seem like Henry Cavill and others would be a significant part of the movie, and they aren’t. I expected this somewhat based on the fact that there was only ever one trailer. That’s always a bad sign, meaning they have very little more to show you. But still, it’s another trailer that blatantly lied to prospective viewers about what kind of movie would be instore. And a weak box office for all these movies helps show that the public is catching on.
The deception might have peaked with the Wicked trailer released last week. The first trailer hid the fact that it was a musical and also that it was Part 1. Wicked is very probably the second most famous musical of the last 25 years, the rare musical to be famous beyond theater circles. If there’s any movie you can sell on it being a musical, it’s Wicked.
Stealth musicals have become a notable talking point the last few months because studios keep hiding the music in their musical films. With Wonka, I get it. I’ve heard the songs aren’t that memorable, and you’re trying to sell people on the Wonka prequel first and foremost. But with The Color Purple and Mean Girls? This is far more inexcusable and, I would suggest, misguided. These are movies that don’t need remaking, and so the musical element is really the only thing you have to which to sell the movie’s existing in the first place.
I skipped The Color Purple in theaters in part because it looked very, very bad. I watched it at home and was amazed to find that it wasn’t very bad and was probably even kind of good. I have no doubt in my mind a stronger marketing campaign could have significantly raised the profile and box office of that film. If the marketing had leaned away from Halle Bailey, who’s barely in the movie, and highlighted the wide range of very excellent songs, I think you could have had a big hit on your hands. But at every step along the way, WB horribly marketed this movie, and so its return was modest at best.
One can’t deny that part of the problem with the box office right now is that there haven’t been that many good movies in the last few months. But there’s marketing to blame, too. Saltburn was a viral hit on home video. Could have it have been marketed to better theatrical success? (yes, because its theater return was really bad). Could Wonka have been a bigger hit? (probably). Could The Color Purple have made more of dent over the holidays? (certainly).
The coming months don’t hold a lot of promise for turning the tide. Dune 2 is going to make a decent amount of money, but the marketing has done nothing to inspire confidence that you’ll get anyone in theaters other than fans of the first Dune movie. That’s enough to make it a modest hit, but I don’t think it’s going to set the world ablaze. Kung Fu Panda 4’s trailer also does not inspire confidence as it seems to be pretty far from the formula that worked for the other films. Mid to late March seems a little more promising, though Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire had a trailer that didn’t generate a ton of interest.
It’s a bleak time. 4 years removed from the start of the pandemic, it’s safe to say that we aren’t returning to the pre-pandemic box office state on a week-to-week basis. But it’s also clear that home video isn’t the answer to all the studio’s woes. The answer is to make better movies that are more daring and original and interesting the public. And then, on the off chance you do this, to actually market them well. Barbie was a great movie, but it was marketed brilliantly, and studios seem to have completely missed this fact. Fingers crossed the tide turns soon.
