Movie Poster Rant

So when we started this blog we promised that it would be informative and inspiring and a whole bunch of other things. It still will be or already is hopefully, but you’re going to have to indulge me on this one little rant of mine which has been brewing for some time.

I love movies, I watch stacks of them. I often re-watch the movies that I thought weren’t that good, just to make sure, yet somehow neglect the ones that have proven to be good because I know I don’t feel I need to re-watch them and check their quality. Stupid I know.

There’s one thing that really gets my goat though, and that’s a lazy movie poster. I find myself feeling constantly disappointed at the movie posters produced. It seems all too often that the poster ends up being a montage of the faces of the various big names that have endorsed the film by staring in it. It’s as if studio’s feel that no one will want to see a film unless they like the celebrities in it so they have to make it clear who they got. I miss the intelligence and expression in movie posters that seek to communicate an integral idea behind a film, rather than merely a celebrity screen grab.

I know that Stallone’s new film The Expendables is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but I was left with my jaw dropping when I saw what a killer poster had been made for it. With the cast line up for this film you just know it’s going to be a sensless bloodbath, and what better way to communicate that than with the old skull and wings military insignia, only with a truck load of weaponry to create the composition. You can understand then why I was so disappointed when I drove past a billboard last night promoting the film and simply featuring a photo shoot of the cast just standing around. The real shame is that they actually already had a really great poster designed but they decided not to use it.

I miss the days where movie posters were clever.

The original promotional poster for the Expendables, featuring skull and wings military insignia

So disappointing. Another celebrity photo shoot as a marketing point

Another disappointment. Such a long graphic history to this character and they still fall back on the photo shoot.

Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Vertigo. Saul Bass was the man. His beautiful hand lettering and illustration perfectly capture the spirit of this film.

Striking movie poster for the film Straw Dogs