Boiling Point: Too Much, Too Soon
Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 20, 2009
Want to know the real reason that X-Men Origins Wolverine was leaked more than a week ago? No, it wasn’t bungled security or some super fan robbing the joint. Someone just thought the movie came out already. They were getting ready to release the DVD. I mean, we’ve been seeing trailers and images and photos and posters for months — surely the film must have come out! But no, that’s not the case. In fact the film isn’t coming out for another 2 weeks.
The Wolverine movie has been out there and easy to find for awhile now. I have absolutely no interest in tracking it down for several reasons. It’s not finished, I’d rather see it on the big screen, all that jazz. But also because I just don’t really care all that much right now. I’ve been over-saturated on Wolverine. I’ve been teased too long. It’s like if dangling a tennis ball over a dog’s head and every time he goes for it, you yank it away. Eventually, the dog says fuck you and you can dance that ball all you want and even just try to give it to him, but he doesn’t care anymore.
More and more I think this is happening in Hollywood. Studios think that your memory is so far shot to shit that you can’t remember anything that either exists, existed, or will exist in the future. It must be in your face all the time. Wolverine is going to be a big movie. No doubt. We don’t need reminded. All of us remember that Wolverine appeared in the X-Men movies. We haven’t forgotten. Though most of us wish we could forget the third installment. Rim-shot!
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is of that sort, or bordering right on it. The first flick only came out like 2 years ago and for the past few months we’ve been getting recycled concept art, recycled clips and anything else to remind us that it’s coming in case you forgot, because last weeks trailer was so, well, last week. Pretty much every single person on the internet was burned out on Watchmen about 20 minutes after it was released – chalk that up to nearly constant coverage for months. GAH. ENOUGH.
I get it’s a fine line between under-promoting a film and hitting it just right, but this is clearly the shotgun approach – scratch that, it’s a nuclear approach. Forget aiming or targeting, just bomb the hell out of everyone. There really isn’t that much of a reason to start advertising a movie more than 4 weeks out. There is no reason to release new posters or new trailers every 4 days for a solid month. People stop caring. Even now we have people on the site argue over whether trailers or new or not – the 2 second difference may get some hype over a “new” trailer, but in the end no one cares.
Right now, Terminator Salvation hasn’t yet over-promoted itself, but they’re still 4 weeks out. I wouldn’t be surprised if we started getting overwhelmed with “new” promotional material for that any day now. But as is, right now, Terminator is pretty close to being advertised about as much as it should be. Time will tell if soon we drown. In the meantime, I’ll definitely be cultivating a ton of apathy towards overexposed projects and steaming right past my boiling point.
Do you think movies are over-promoted? Which ones? Which ones haven’t been promoted enough?
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