{"id":1779,"date":"2008-05-22T04:47:35","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T03:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=1779"},"modified":"2008-05-22T04:47:35","modified_gmt":"2008-05-22T03:47:35","slug":"movie-marketing-ideas-that-never-were","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/05\/22\/movie-marketing-ideas-that-never-were\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Marketing Ideas That Never Were"},"content":{"rendered":"

Movie marketing isn’t an exact science but have you ever seen a film that was crying out for a tie-in or some kind of clever hook?<\/p>\n

Here are some light hearted movie marketing ideas that never happened.<\/p>\n

MAY THE 4th BE WITH YOU
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a phrase I’ve heard from several people as kind of a gag, but the question needs to be asked. Why on earth has George Lucas never released a Star Wars film on May 4th?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1977 the first film<\/a> came out on May 25th, in 1980 The Empire Strikes Back<\/a> was released on May 21st, whilst in 1983 Return of the Jedi<\/a> was unleashed on May 25th.<\/p>\n

So, what about the prequels? Maybe they didn’t need the publicity, but let’s see. The Phantom Menace<\/a> came out on May 19th 1999, Attack of the Clones<\/a> on May 16th 2002 and Revenge of the Sith<\/a> on May 19th 2005.<\/p>\n

According to Wikipedia, May 4th<\/a> is even known as ‘Star Wars Day<\/a>‘ – so why have there never been any Star Wars movies released on this date?<\/p>\n

I sense a missed opportunity in the Force.<\/p>\n

DIGG DiG!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

DiG!<\/a> is a 2004 documentary about two rival bands: The Dandy Warhols<\/a> and The Brian Jonestown Massacre<\/a>. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival<\/a> and is a highly entertaining look at two very different approaches to life in the music industry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The same year, Kevin Rose<\/a> was starting the social news website called Digg<\/a>, which is now pretty big. How about a tie-in for a future DVD release? Maybe users could Digg<\/a> DiG<\/a>…<\/p>\n

HASTA LA WINDOWS VISTA, BABY
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Microsoft launched their latest operating system with a rather confusing campaign using the word Wow<\/a>. Given that they spent an estimated $500 million on the campaign<\/a> and people actually want to go back<\/em> to XP<\/a>, surely they should have spent some money on a big name?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How about someone famous and not afraid of making a fool of himself in Japanese beer adverts<\/a>? Yes, why not get Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a> to reprise his famous Terminator 2 catchphrase<\/a>? Hasta La Windows Vista, Baby.<\/p>\n

FIREFOX: MOZILLA EDITION
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Firefox<\/a> is a 1982 thriller starring Clint Eastwood<\/a> as pilot who steals a highly advanced Soviet<\/a> fighter plane <\/a> (code named “Firefox”<\/a>) which carries weapons controlled by thought<\/a> (yes, really).<\/p>\n

Although it grossed $46,700,000 at US cinemas, I think we can safely say it isn’t one of Warner Home Video’s biggest ever titles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How about bundling a revamped special edition DVD with the latest version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser<\/a>?<\/p>\n

YOU’VE GOT GMAIL
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1998 Tom Hanks<\/a> and Meg Ryan<\/a> reteamed for a romantic comedy called You’ve Got Mail<\/a> after the success of Sleepless in Seattle<\/a> in 1993. The title of this film was based on the – now rather dated – greeting<\/a> that AOL<\/a> users heard when they received new e-mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How about Nora Eprhon<\/a> doing a Google funded director’s cut where Hanks and Ryan use the much cooler Gmail<\/a>?<\/p>\n

BOURNE IN THE USA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year I remember seeing some smart comments on Hollywood Elsewhere<\/a> about the marketing of The Bourne Ultimatum<\/a>. The first one sheet poster <\/a>was based around the idea of Jason Bourne<\/a> returning to the US (‘This summer Jason Bourne is coming home’), so someone suggested the phrase ‘Bourne in the USA’.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Given that the Bourne movies and Bruce Springsteen<\/a> are both popular and politically savvy, what ever happened to the tie-in album? \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Any other ideas? Leave them below.<\/p>\n

> Movie Marketing Madness<\/a>
\n> Film marketing at Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Movie marketing isn’t an exact science but have you ever seen a film that was crying out for a tie-in or some kind of clever hook? Here are some light hearted movie marketing ideas that never happened. MAY THE 4th BE WITH YOU This is a phrase I’ve heard from several people as kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[221],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}