Now this is exactly what every studio should do, they should make something specifically for the online audience to hush up bloggers and commenters ready to rip into anything that doesn’t satisfy their tastes, as I did with the atrocious Made in Dagenham poster not too long ago.
The first poster for the recently released The King’s Speech (featured to the right) left much to be desired and drew strong remarks from just about everyone that posted it or saw it. It was a Photoshopped piece of junk that showed very little in terms of artistry. Even director Tom Hooper said, “[That] poster will be replaced very quickly with a very good poster… I hate it… It’s a train smash.”
However, it served its purpose in getting the faces of the three main characters in front of general audiences who aren’t necessarily walking through theaters looking for pieces of movie “art” as much as they are looking for something they may be interested in seeing in a couple of weeks. Why do you think floating head artwork is all you see on DVDs? It’s because consumers need to see faces they recognize, not minimalistic cool looking Saul Bass posters. Gone are the days of attention spans… sorry.
That said, this latest poster for The King’s Speech that just debuted at Yahoo falls right in line with every other piece of minimal movie art we’ve seen recently going the orange and black route. I swear, there must be a thousand posters for 2010 movies that feature orange prominently. It’s as if every movie is a Halloween feature ready for the turning of the leaves.
This is, however, a better piece of art than the previous poster, but it’s an “online” poster for a reason… It’s not putting any asses in the seats.
“Who’s face is that? Is that a microphone? Who cares!” is what people would be saying as they walked by this poster, which would be flanked by far cooler posters featuring Natalie Portman and Harry Potter if it were to be used in cinemas.
The problem is that while The King’s Speech is a great film, it’s not a marketable film. The story of a king with a stuttering problem doesn’t exactly scream fireworks and lightning. That said, there must be someone out there that can come up with something better than what we’ve seen so far.
