Jordan Breeding
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There are a bunch of tried and true ways to market a movie. You can put out posters, trailers, or if you're making a horror film, just hint that all of this chainsaw shit MIGHT be real. However, I understand that sometimes you want to stand out in the crowd, which can lead you to do extraordinary things. Or in the case of these movie marketing stunts, extraordinarily stupid things.
To promote their upcoming releases, studios send all sorts of whimsical little collectibles to journalists, like the '80s-era View-Masters Netflix mailed ahead of Stranger Things. But how do you do cool, memorable collectibles for a somber drama about a string of horrific human tragedies? If your reply is that maybe they should consider not sending trinkets at all, you're already a step ahead of the people involved here.
A Belfast Story is a movie about an Irish detective investigating the murders of former IRA members. Given the violence that gripped the UK during the Troubles, A Belfast Story's exploration of "life after terrorism" aims to be a bit more profound than, say, The Happytime Murders. To drive home the weightiness of the subject matter, the film's press packs were designed to "represent the choices people in Northern Ireland need to make between retribution and reconciliation," according to the director.
Which is to say he sent them a glorified "my first terrorist attack" starter kit, including gaffer tape, balaclavas, and nails to place inside their very own nail bombs.
Chris Hewitt
Reviewers were understandably disgusted with the kit, and if you think they were being oversensitive, please remember that some of the recipients lived through these attacks. And really, what was the point being made? That sometimes people have to choose between killing people with improvised explosives and ... not doing that? Is it possible that press kit swag is not the best medium in which to convey a nuanced point about political violence?
Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale is about a dystopian society in which an ultra-religious government has rounded up fertile women and "assigned" them to high-ranking officials, who force the women to endure ritualistic rape whenever they're ovulating. It's a brutal show that explores misogyny and religious abuse, and will generally make you feel worse about the world. So the people charged with the unenviable task of promoting The Emoji Movie knew they had to go for a tie-in:
Sony
Related: 6 Movie Marketing Tie-Ins That Hilariously Missed The Point
If you haven't seen Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, you've probably seen one of the film industry's many, many attempts to provide a "new spin" on the classic tale. And most recently, that spin was apparently "What if Snow White was fat, and therefore repulsive?" Presumably, that's not actually the plot of the upcoming film Red Shoes & The 7 Dwarfs, but I'll be damned if that doesn't seem to be the premise of the marketing:
Locus Creative Studios
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