Will Universal’s Bruno Kill it at the Box Office Its Opening Weekend or Will it Be Killed?
Yes, I know…it just might be a little too early to ask the question.
After all, it’ll be another month before the comedy hits theatres.
Why Universal didn’t program it for the 4th of July weekend is beyond me.
But oh well. On with the discussion.
Actually asking if the movie will rock the box office or not is indeed a pertinent question, especially considering that the movie’s marketers are trying to create some early interest in the comedy as seen by the Sacha Baron/Bruno and Eminem incident during this past weekend’s MTV Movie Awards outed for the stunt that it was by MTV head writer Scott Aukerman.
And especially knowing from The Dark Knight advance….advance publicity campaign that it’s never too early to start cajoling moviegoers into the movie theatre.
Slate’s The Big Money’s Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans are definitely among those who are doubt that Bruno will live up to its comedy-of-the-summer expectations, writing:
“So far, the appeal of Bruno is not quite as promising as that of Borat. After the first week, the YouTube viewing figures for Bruno are underwhelming, and the comments reveal a more skeptical tone.”
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, reporter Lauren A. E. Schuker thinks she knows why Universal chose that approach:
“How does a major Hollywood studio promote a movie so raunchy and offensive that it initially got an NC-17 rating? By staying under the radar.”
Robert Marich, the author of Marketing to Moviegoers, interviewed for Schuker’s article infers that subtlety is practically Universal’s best ally in the marketing and publicity strategy for Bruno, contending that,
“One of the things about ‘Borat’ was that it surprised everyone. It had a much bigger opening than tracking surveys indicated because it had such a viral buzz. The challenge here for Universal is to sustain that with ‘Bruno,’ which isn’t always easy with high-concept movies because they’re not so fresh the second time around.”
The folks at Gawker blasted the movie (or rather what is implied by Baron Cohen’s subtle promotion), and in particular Sacha Baron Cohen’s antics and the idiosynchrasies of the character, and actually recommends the 29,934 readers who hopped on its site to read the article to go see Outrage—another movie—instead.
The Bruno team is nonetheless tireless when it comes to promotion—most of all Sacha Baron Cohen the zany actor who plays the title character.
Baron Cohen as “Bruno” guest-wrote an article for women’s magazine Marie Claire, appearing on the magazine’s July 2009 cover, a rather significant coup since only women have graced the Conde Nast magazine’s covers—to my knowledge.
And in a publicity bit that’s definitely wasn’t staged, Baron Cohen is being sued by a woman for injuries she allegedly suffered on the Bruno set.
Reuters noted the movie’s publicist strategy of selling Sacha Baron’s personality more than the movie itself, pointing out that:
“Universal Pictures is taking the softly, softly marketing approach for the cinematic release of Bruno, which arrives on the big screen July 10. So far, Universal has spent more time (and cash) plugging the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy on social networks and YouTube. Could Universal be playing it too cool?”
But playing it cool sometimes works.
Photo Credit: Gavin Bond
How the Film Community is Making Use of Twitter
Have you joined Twitter yet? You know the much-talked about microblogging tool that everyone’s using.
You should, instead of procrastinating and trying to convince yourself that it’s the latest tech craze, and that’ll it’ll go out of style just like the other online trends of yesteryear.
Ashton Kutcher did, and well, he sure was glad he did.
Kutcher and his frequent tweet postings are being credited with bringing massive advance publicity to the movie Five Killers, the Lionsgate movie that his production company Katalyst is co-producing, by linking to a video of himself on getting his chest hairs plucked for the movie. At last count (done by Twitterholic), Kutcher had over 620,000 followers (and counting), fourth only behind CNN, Britney Spears and President Barack Obama. Now that’s a lot of attention. That’s about as good, if not better, than doing press for a magazine with a circulation of a million. After all, Tweets get retweeted, or passed around; totally viral, indeed. Newscasts and websites of prominent news stations and entertainment news magazines all reported on
According to Gregg Kilday’s rather insightful article in The Hollywood Reporter, Kutcher’s guerrilla marketing efforts ring quite well with the movie’s director, who told the trade paper:
“The reaction has been incredible. I have gotten thousands of enthusiastic posts from people thanking me for the frank, unpolished look at the making of my latest film.”
One would expect Kiletic to go off in a tangent at his star for violating the sanctity of a movie set, but no. He only had praise for Kutcher’s Pr-ing, saying,
“He’s a dedicated Twitter powerhouse. He makes sure he connects every day and is honest and open. The old fake veneer our business has been flogging for years is wearing thin. It’s time to shake things up: Take control of your information — own it.”
Kilday’s article goes on to detail how the Hollywood movie community is leveraging Twitter for plenty of pre-release publicity.
Michael Moses, a Universal publicity executive, confessed to using Twitter to get early reaction to the studio-leaked Bruno movie previews, while Jon Favreau muses on Iron Man 2 early rehearsals. Paramount, whose M. Night Shyamalan-directed The Last Airbender is currently being filmed, updates fans on set happenings via the tweets of the movie’s producers Sam Mercer and Frank Marshall.
Recently, Lionsgate offered movie fans their first peek at an outside poster for its upcoming movie Crank High Voltage.
Twitter is definitely a way for studios to get feedback, and allows them to get constructive and deconstructive criticism from moviegoers. It’s certainly better to get a premature verdict on a @reply than at the box office receipts tallying bulletin board. Now that’s priceless and…all for nothing (although there’s been some talk about having paid corporate accounts).
Perhaps, it’s time you should make Twitter a part of your movie marketing and PR campaign if you haven’t thought of it already.
So what are you waiting for? In less than 140 words: join today!