A trailer reboot?

Here is an interesting experiment by a rather industrious individuals in response to the increasing amount of remakes/reboots Hollywood is producing: recut the trailer of the original Clash of the Titans and The Wolf Man using today's marketing aesthetics. As you can see below, it's quite effective and it posits the interesting question: if younger audiences were marketed older films with contemporary sensibilities, would it build an interest in viewing older films? I would certainly be for such an endeavor as an appreciation for older material only builds a more sophisticated and savvy audience.





Then again, that's not what the whole remake/reboot trend is all about, right? If people watched older films and demanded newer ones, studios would actually have to develop original ideas. I think it would be safe to say that that well is certainly almost dry—in terms of the majors anyway.

Clash of the Titans (remake)

Yahoo Movies released the first teaser for the remake of Clash of the Titans starring Sam Worthington who may be turning into the flavor of the month--time will tell. We have said our peace here about remakes, but this teaser only serves the point. What are they marketing in this minute and a half? Is it a classic fable of heroism? Is it the struggle of man against divine forces? Or is it monsters, swords, and gods...oh my!

The only dialogue in the piece doesn't feel mythic. In fact, it's almost downright contemporary, despite being delivered by Pete Postelthwaite. When you slap on rock music to a stream of jumping, grimacing, running imagery, and with the Monday Night Football inspired "Titans"-"Will"-"Clash" tagline, the intention of the filmmakers, so far it seems, is to pull in the crowd whose "literature" involves comic books and whose "epics" are found on videogame consoles.

But this is just the teaser. There is certainly more to be offered, right???

The Mechanic (remake)

This is the poster that was released during the American Film Market, currently taking place in Santa Monica, for the upcoming remake of the classic Charles Bronson thriller. We here are not the biggest fans of remakes as they are a distinct sign in the lack of faith Hollywood has in original material, even though there are so many interesting concepts out there.

The Mechanic was a heady, cat-and-mouse thriller about a contract killer that played out more like a procedural than a typical action film, especially one from the 70s. I can almost guarantee you that the elements that made the original very intelligent and taut with tension will most certainly be replaced by gritty action and a lot of posturing by our players.

That said, however, the main impetus for this post is the marketing of the film. The poster above is fairly typical of key art that comes out of AFM as most films have yet to start principal photography and are deep into pre-production. The goal at AFM is to attract distributors. At this stage, the producers probably have not had time to shoot proper cast photos, so a bearded jawline that seems like lead Jason Stratham is enough. What is laughable is the briefcase being made the central focus of the poster, one with the star's name on it as if it's labeled just in case he loses it. But the piece-de-resistance is the tag line:

There are thousands of ways to kill a man...
Just check his briefcase

Aside from being sterile rather than compelling the English grammar should make one chuckle. It's obvious the copy writer means for us to check the "hitman's" briefcase (you know the one with Stratham's name on it), but grammatically, the "his" in the second line modifies the previous, noun, and in this case that would be the man you can kill thousands of ways. So, what this poster is telling us is if we wanted to kill a man, all we need to do is to check his briefcase to find out how.

Hollywood...you're certainly good for a laugh, if anything.

Near Dark

On the left is the new DVD and Blu-ray cover for the cult classic vampire film, Near Dark, directed by Katheryn Bigelow. On the right is the original theatrical release poster. If you're thinking to yourself that these look like two completely different films, you wouldn't be erroneous in that train of thought.

However, when you see that the new key art for the home release looks suspiciously like this poster for the unexpectedly successful teen vampire film Twilight, then the reason for this disparity becomes more clear. Hoping to ride the wave of Twilight's popularity, Lion's Gate is releasing Near Dark with a marketing image that aims to attract Twilight's audience. Fans of the film, myself included, know that Near Dark is one of the great vampire films of all time. A wholly unique take on the often used (abused) film monster, introducing a family of hillbilly, RV dwelling vampires who ruthlessly hunt the open plains of the American Midwest. And though there is a love story, it's the central theme of embracing one's feral nature or succumbing to one's darkness that juxtaposes against the choice of "love" and "light." There is no romanticism, no couple fawning over each other; in fact these vampires don't even have pale skin nor do they ever bear fangs and yellow eyes! It is a gritty, dark and violent romp through vampirism starring James Cameron regulars such as Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Janet Goldstein. The film was made at a low budget, but it has stood the test of time only to be prostituted by Lion's Gate in order to attract a demographic who will be in for quite a shock once they see that Twilight is no Near Dark.