Tom Cruise movie posters

Every once in a while there are some problems with movie promotion in Hollywood. This happens since (A) movie promotion is a standardized business and (B) there are a heck of a lot of movies to promote.

So for starters there are the bad -BAD- Photoshops. These are always fun. Now it isn't always the American company who makes these bad 'shops' it is often the case that some foreign company tries its hand at this magical thing called 'pheutoshoop' and that's when the fun happens.

 

Take for instance this current favorite of mine of the Mexican movie poster of the movie Chef. Great Sunday-afternoon movie, fascinatingly bad Photoshop. I love every horrid detail of it.

Then there are the standardized photo shops. For Example: floating heads, add sparks, orange versus blue (these are well known thropes). The cliché are obvious. Which brings me to my personal favorite: the: 'put Tom Cruise in the centre looking constipated'-poster.

This poster for Jack Reacher. The only thing I learn from this picture is that Tom Cruise is angry and he has a gun. What the movie turns out to be is a rather more sophisticated crime-thriller. True, Tom gets angry and he uses his gun but -to be honest- this poster could just as easily have been used for MI4, or whatnot.

And that's basically the problem with promotional poster for Tom Cruise movies. It  focusses far too much on 'Tom Cruise' rather than what the movie is about.

Take Up in the air for instance. It's a movie with George Clooney, but what the poster tells us is that the movie is about a guy (centered) on an airport. No explosions so it's probably a drama. Simple, now we know what we are going to see.

Which brings me to the next little Tom Cruise-y issue I want to raise. The movie Edge of tomorrow. For starters, this is, without a doubt the worst title ever. Better to call the movie ON the edge of tomorrow. Or use the new title Live, die, repeat. Edge of tomorrow is a deadpan title that tells the audience nothing. Up in the air -again- at least tells the audience that it's about something 'unattainable' (and showing an airport certainly helps).

But the biggest problem with the promotion of Edge of Tomorrow is that it shows Tom Cruise in a big mechanical suit, Emily Blunt holding a big sword and...nothing else. And, the fun part is, the mechanical suits are just a gimmick in the movie. They are not really that important when you get down to it. The promoters would have done brilliantly if they skipped Tom Cruise from the poster (or maybe just showed his floating head) and settled on something 'time-travelly' or something to draw the audience into the story instead of Tom Cruise. Because, selling this movie as a Tom Cruise action movie is truly undeserving to the story of the movie.

The promotion company (or the producers giving the orders) figured promoting Tom Cruise would be enough to get those theater seats filled. They were wrong. People, nowadays, want more (the same goes for Jack Reacher). 

A poster I really liked in its simplicity is the one for the (foreign) film Embarazados. Now, I don’t know anything about it apart from the poster (plus I actually try not to find out more about this movie until next year when I'm going to see it on demand -since I'm writing about it, it's the least I can do.).

Let's start with what I disliked. Those little 'swimmers' going at the letter 'O'. It's a bit much, I'm a reasonably clever guy I got most of the gist of the plot from the rest of the poster. Because the poster is brilliant as it shows just enough of what you need to know. Guy and girl. My mind immediately screams: 'couple'. And then the shadows. She's pregnant and he's running.  That's all we need. So we've got a comedy (dark drama's don't often use caricatural shadows) about pregnancy. She's probably okay with it, he's probably terrified. Simplicity itself. It brings the message across not by spelling it out, but by allowing us to connect the dots. 

In my, humble,opinion Tom Cruise-movie-poster-makers should learn from this simple example. It is far smarter and better to put forwards what the movie is first, then show your trump card that is Mr. perfect teeth. Thank goodness the people of MI5 learned from Edge of Tomorrow's mistake. Big plane, guy dangling from it, looks interesting, looks actiony - oh heck, that's Tom Cruise!