FILM MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION

By Oliver Tyrrell

Inglourious Basterds (2009) Directed By:

Quentin Tarantino Starring:

Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Laurent, Michael Fassbender and Eli Roth.

Box Office

Budget:  $70,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:  $38,054,676 (USA) (21 August 2009) (3165 Screens)

Gross:  $321,455,689 (Worldwide) (17 December 2009)

Inglourious Basterds (2009)Production Companies Universal Pictures  Weinstein Company A Band Apart

Release Strategy

The Weinstein's cleverly released the film

Weinstein Productions, decided to flood

The strategy paid off

Advertising Material

Official Posters

Teaser/main Trailerswww.youtube.com/watch?v=5sQhTVz5IjQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOMKloOEKcU

Promotional Material And Merchandise Posters T-Shirts Mugs and key rings Soundtrack

Sahara (2005)

Directed By:

Breck Eisner

Starring:

Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz and Steve Zhan.

Box Office:

Budget:

 $130,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

 $18,068,372 (USA) (10 April 2005) (3154 Screens)

Gross:

 $68,642,452 (USA) (31 July 2005)

Production Companies

Paramount Pictures  Bristol Bay Productions  Baldwin Entertainment Group 

Release Strategy

The main release strategy.

Releasing the film in the School holidays, was a smart move my Paramount.

Ultimately the film struggled.

Advertising/Promotional Material

Posters

Teaser/Main Trailer http://youtu.be/oWJ6gXpI7Ok

Promotional material

Sahara Vs. Inglourious Basterds

The film itself was to an extent rather successful. Inglourious Basterds on the other hand, succeed in every

sense of the word. Other factors also allowed Inglorious Basterds to succeed.

Sahara Questionnaire Results After analysing the Questionnaire results, it became clear to

me that their was one fundamental issue with the original poster.

New Campaign Intentions As the general feedback from the original poster, highlighted

the lack of information, I decided that my own representation should provide hints towards the narrative.

I also used a large range of images and created a less vague tagline. I also decided to scrap the contrasting colour scheme and select a more suitable one.

End Product:

New Campaign Results

When collecting the results, for the original poster, I couldn't help but see that the feedback was very negative, but especially when talking about the clarity of the genre. The viewer tended to miss the fact that the film has both Action and Adventure. The Action aspects were unclear to the audience and as this is the case, I thought that it was necessary to include more aspects of violence and action in my own poster. After analyzing the results from my own poster, it seems that the films genre is far clearer in my own representation.

Original Results: New Results:

Comparison of Questionnaire Results Due to my poor Photoshop skills, I would have to say that my

own poster was only on par with the original. However I do think that I have included/altered and removed some key points in the new poster.

After analysing both questionnaire results, It seems that I wider audience find my own poster more appealing.

Results also show a substantial increase in the amount of Females who found the new campaign poster appealing, in contrast to the 10% of females who found the original poster appealing.

Overall Summary

Overall, I think that the two posters have both good and bad factors which ultimately outweigh themselves.

I strongly believe, regardless of any reviews, ratings etc, that Sahara would have succeeded if it had not had such a large budget. Poor planning and a lack of clear narrative ultimately ruined the films chances of success at the Box Office.

One of the reasons the poster did not succeed, was because of the lack of information and clarity. The tagline was too vague and the genre was unclear to some participants.

New Distribution And Marketing Plan

Distribution: Sahara cost nearly $82 million dollars to distribute. This

outrageous cost plus other costs such as McConaugheys’ $8 million in wages and the overall production coast of $160 million dollars subsequently caused the film to bomb.

In my Distribution plan these costs would almost half.

I intend to release the film to over three thousand cinemas in the US in the summer holidays. Due to the mild violence children under 13 must be accompanied by an adult. Therefore, the film will be released when parents are on holiday looking after the children. This will also bring in a wide range of audiences.

New Distribution And Marketing Plan

Marketing Plan For the marketing campaign, I would begin to unveil the

teaser trailer roughly 9 months before general release. I would then begin to release the main trailer, posters and

promotional material roughly 6 months before release. I would especially like Penelope Cruz and Matthew

McConaughey to promote the film, in television interviews, online interviews and in magazines/newspapers.

Generally, the advertising would be placed on billboards and Magazines, newspapers and in bus shelters.

The End