Marketing 101: How to kill a movie

How not to market a film...

Last weekend, two low-budget movies were released.  Both took familiar high-concept ideas and turned them inside out by casting people and ideas against type.  Both were well-reviewed, earning over 80% positive notices on Rotten Tomatoes from prominent critics. 

District 9’s marketing was spot-on, suggesting something familiar but cool.  The result was a $37 million bow and tremendous word-of-mouth. 

The other film was Todd Graff’s Bandslam, which eeked out a paltry $2.7 million on the back of an ad campaign that made it look like the umpteenth High School Musical rip-off.  It wasn’t - despite the presence of Vanessa Hudgens.  Her dark performance was likened to a Breakfast Club-era Ally Sheedy but that didn’t stop Summit Entertainment from putting her sunny smile front-and-center and promoting the character dramedy like it was spawned from the Disney machine (Summit is also the studio behind the Twilight films and tried to drive business to Bandslam by attaching the Twilight Saga: New Moon trailer to theatrical prints.)

Although the public wasn’t privy to the internal process, there was allegedly a massive row over maintaining the film’s integrity and how to promote it properly.  But (Summit CEO) Rob Freidman would allegedly hear nothing of it.  He allegedly pulled rank, alienating the filmmakers, and rammed the concept of selling it with a Disney slant through the process. 

This is the kind of creative struggle they write books about.

On Sunday, August 16th, a filmmaker (who asked to remain anonymous) wrote to Deadline Hollywood Daily’s Nikki Finke and revealed what had led up to the film’s release. He wrote, “Death by marketing? A movie that gets 80% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes -- 90% from top critics -- won't see the light of day because Summit consistently made some of the worst choices, and their core audience summarily dismissed the movie without seeing it based on their sale.

“Start off with the fact that they chose BANDSLAM for a title instead of WILL. They thought WILL was too indie. But that’s what made this movie special. It was an indie voice wrapped up in a high concept. So, instead of selling it quirky and cool (a la Juno) they sold it on the Disney channel's Vanessa Hudgens and Aly Milchaka. Instead of selling the concept, band of outcasts like The Commitments, they Disneyfied this movie with glitter paint. So what is an ironic, smart script with a killer soundtrack was sold like High School Musical meets Phil of the Future. Instead of embracing it for its quirky-ness, for its unique voice … they flattened it out so it looked like everything else.

“There have been literally dozens and dozens of calls today and e-mails from heads of marketing at different studios saying this may be singly the worst job they've ever seen on a movie whose unique voice deserved to be heard through positioning, title, marketing tie-ins, and knowing your audience. But Rob Friedman and Summit infantilized their audience. They presumed that since HSM was a hit, and the same star was in their movie singing, they should just sell it the same way.   Nancy Kirkpatrick took instructions from Rob. He had this idea in his head to sell it with the Disney slant, and no one could sway him. People tried, trust me. They knew the movie tested through the roof but the materials didn’t. And still he was bullish. He’s just so f--king arrogant.”

But it goes deeper.  Apparently, this wasn’t just a case of a misunderstood filmmaker at odds with his promotions team.  The origins of Bandslam’s slow death can be found in the classic political shakedown when one management team inherits another’s.

“The real problem was that this was [Walden Media] Cary Granat’s baby and when he was let go, and Alex Schwartz was let go – the project got taken over by Summit. Eric Feig was in the middle of TWILIGHT, so it became Rob’s baby. He saw Vanessa singing and he could only think of one way to sell it. The only problem is she’s not playing Gabriella from HSM. She’s playing a dark, monotone goth character. And she’s really pretty good. But you wouldn’t know it by the ads. They should have let the audience re-discover her as this Ally Sheedy, Breakfast Club, freak, but instead, they found shots of her smiling, and sold it on that. And even though the movie was so NOT Disney. You’ve got lines like “A Nuremburg rally produced by MTV”, and a whole section that takes place in an abandoned CBGB’s talking about The Killers, The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, The Police, and U2. I mean, come on, this is NOT High School Musical. You’ve got a kid obsessed with David Bowie, writing him letters throughout the movie … Todd Graff wrote and directed a beautiful lyrical film with a killer soundtrack that the Hollywood Reporter critic compared to a cross between Cameron Crowe and John Hughes. Read the Washington Post review.”

In the comments section below the posting, a poster named mefrombefore adds the following details: “I worked at Summit. From what I recall there were many internal fights about how to sell this film. The filmmakers didn’t like the title. Screaming matches, nasty e-mails. The filmmakers wanted it to be cooler, they hated everything about the campaign – they didn’t want to concentrate on Vanessa Hudgens. They knew older kids didn’t think she was cool. So they wanted Summit to sell it a different way. I remember a meeting where Elaine and Todd walked out in the middle. Todd refused to come back. It was hard internally because the temptation to sell it to Vanessa’s audience was the only hook. And even though the filmmakers didn’t want it, they did it anyway.”

Bandslam was almost called Rock On.

And this, from another poster: “I heard that Elaine Goldsmith got so frustrated with the Summit marketing people about the title, that she and the kids on the movie made a video pleading with the studio to not name it Bandslam. She almost had them convinced, but Rob gave her a choice: either BANDSLAM or ROCK ON!  How’s that for creativity? Truly. Dumb or Dumber. So Todd Graff threatened to take his name off the movie if they called it ROCK ON. And that’s how they ended up with Bandslam. Todd and Elaine wanted it to be called, “WILL”. But Summit said, no one will go see a movie with that title. Unbelievable.”

In short, the audience the film should have attracted had no interest in seeing a High School Musical knockoff; and the HSM crowd didn’t get the film they were being sold.  How can anybody think this was a smart move?

A humble suggestion: If Summit wants to cut its theatrical losses, they can still re-position the film as a DVD event.  Find a suitable title and skew the marketing so it’s more like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist or Adventureland – smart, literate and based on the characters.  Downplay the band competition and sell the love story and awkwardness.  Add some of the pop culture references and primal moments that evoke a sense of wanting to support these characters.  

And if Summit is smart, their theatrical blunder will be part of the marketing.  Filmgoers love mulligans.  We wouldn’t have director’s cuts if that weren’t the case.  But there I go, using common sense again. And common sense had nothing to do with creating this problem or prematurely killing this film.

All one has to do is watch the trailer mash-up that re-imagines The Shining as a romantic comedy to see that you can take any footage and sell whatever the hell you want.  And yet, marketing is usually the one thing that will make or break a film.  $100 million worth of support and Transformers is the biggest film of the year. 

But taking an earnest coming-of-age film with good performances and smart observations and shoe-horning it into a younger-skewing publicity widget isn’t just cynical and calculated.  It’s stupid. 

In fact, I propose using Bandslam as a verb when talking about soulless machines misrepresenting, and thus, destroying creativity.  For example, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is being Bandslammed by focusing on the Brad Pitt storyline, which is only a third of the film. See?  Works pretty well.

Bravo to the folks over at Sony who turned District 9 into a must-see event.  And more power to the filmmakers and studios who nurture originality and fresh stories. 

How many more McMovies will it take before independent or daring films are snuffed out altogether?