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00:00Now, it's unfortunately fair to say that a movie's success is most often down to how effectively
00:05it's marketed, because a misaligned marketing campaign can make sure that even a masterful
00:10movie will fail to connect with the masses. And then there are those films that are marketed
00:14heavily on the basis of a gimmick, be it 3D, an enticing mystery, or another highly specific
00:19element which the studio believes will appeal to viewers. But sometimes a film is just good,
00:24even great despite a campaign that sold it, and is actually lessened by the marketing gimmick
00:29that's attached to it. So let's take a look at them today. I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:33and these are 10 movies that are brilliant besides their marketing gimmick.
00:3710. Putting 3D in the movie's title, Dread
00:41Dread is one of the most baffling box office bombs of the last decade. Despite being budgeted at a
00:47totally sensible $45 million and receiving largely positive reviews from Judge Dread fans and critics
00:52alike, the comic book reboot tanked at the box office, grossing an appalling $41.5 million worldwide.
00:59Several reasons were cited for this, such as audience disinterest in the IP following the
01:031995 Sylvester Stallone starring Dud, but for many, the culprit seemed to be the film's rather goofy
01:09marketing campaign. For some reason, somebody at the studio decided that in addition to being
01:14presented in 3D, the film would be released in cinemas with the title Dread 3D. Given that the
01:203D craze was already waning by 2012, for many it made the film sound like a schlocky attraction full
01:25of heavy-handed, silly 3D effects that would supersede the story and the characters.
01:30Considering that the dimensional designation was often tacked on to titles of ridiculous 3D
01:35movies like My Bloody Valentine, Piranha, Step Up, Jackass, Sora, and A Very Harold and Kumar
01:40Christmas, it just didn't suggest that audiences should take Dread seriously, and so they didn't.
01:46It's frustrating that a boneheaded marketing decision cut the film's box office out from under it,
01:50especially as the vast majority of people who have ever seen the film didn't actually see it in 3D.
01:55Though Dread was, to its credit, shot in real 3D rather than being post-converted,
01:59it's really the least interesting part of the entire movie. On its own merits,
02:03it's a ludicrously entertaining, ultra-violent retooling of a classic comic property.
02:089. Telling Audiences Not To Spoil Its Big Secret
02:12The Crying Game
02:13When a movie hinges its marketing campaign on a big surprise, it's always worth being wary,
02:18because this can often be marketing shorthand for a studio knowing that they've got a dud on their
02:22hands and are trying to disguise it with an alluring mystery. Neil Jordan's iconic 1992
02:27thriller The Crying Game was memorably sold on the strength of its big twist,
02:31with trailers telling audiences that nothing is as it seems, while posters quite emphatically
02:35calling it a movie everyone is talking about, but no one is giving away its secrets.
02:40It was a brilliant marketing hook that absolutely worked, making the film a sleeper hit at the
02:44box office before it received six Oscar nominations. But beyond the marketing
02:48centred on just one aspect of the story, a twist that we won't reveal here in case you haven't
02:52actually seen it still, The Crying Game is an exceptionally crafted and frequently surprising
02:56piece of work that's by turns exciting and unexpectedly affecting. In retrospect,
03:02you can't really blame Miramax for clinging to the most attention-grabbing aspect of the film,
03:06but the big reveal has been so widely dissected and parodied in general culture
03:09that it's easy to forget that there is a superb film unfolding behind it.
03:148. The Mystery of What is the Matrix? The Matrix
03:18Not entirely unlike The Crying Game, the marketing for The Matrix focused on its focal enigma,
03:23What is the Matrix? The original teaser trailer quite ingeniously showed off a flurry of stunning
03:28shots from the film with absolutely no context whatsoever. No dialogue from the movies,
03:33no voiceover narration, nor any text to speak of. The trailer ended by directing the viewers to
03:38whatisthematrix.com, a website that actually didn't do a whole lot to demystify what audiences had seen,
03:43but only sent them further down the rabbit hole of mystery. This approach could have easily
03:48backfired, or been a cover to compensate for a film that didn't make a lot of sense,
03:52but The Matrix of course became a massive word-of-mouth hit as viewers told their friends
03:56about it. As Morpheus himself says, you really do have to see it for yourself. The Matrix was one of
04:01the first films to take full advantage of the internet's potential to help sell a movie to the
04:05entire world, and in this case it helped that the movie also happened to be a stone-cold masterpiece
04:09in its own right. 7. Releasing the trailer without a title, or much other information,
04:15Cloverfield. No filmmaker does the what's in the box, what's in the box quite like J.J. Abrams,
04:21who as a producer of 2008's monster movie Cloverfield spearheaded a marketing campaign
04:26centred around what audiences didn't know. In July 2007, the iconic teaser trailer for the film was put
04:32in front of Screamings of Transformers, confirming the existence of an unseen monster, but in a radical move,
04:38didn't even give away the movie's title. The teaser release caused a feverish buzz online,
04:42and fans speculated on whether or not it might be a live-action Voltron movie or a new Godzilla film,
04:47amongst many other things. The anticipation reached a fever pitch thanks to an extensive
04:51viral marketing campaign, including a complex alternate reality game and a passionate fan
04:57community that entertained every last possible fan theory. The kicker, of course, is that Cloverfield
05:02actually ended up living up to the astronomical levels of hype, delivering an uncommonly diverting
05:06riff on both the found footage and monster movie genres. As much as Abrams is rightly pilloried
05:12for his deference towards mystery-infused marketing that the projects themselves don't
05:16often quite live up to, Cloverfield largely delivered the goods.
05:196. Making Audiences Demand Its Release
05:22Paranormal Activity
05:24Paramount's handling of the original Paranormal Activity is nothing short of marketing genius,
05:29emphasising the supposedly real nature of its scares, but even more brilliantly,
05:33focusing on the scarcity of available screenings. Paramount slowly expanded the film's release in
05:38the US and around the world, first showing it in a number of college towns where they recorded
05:42audiences' reactions, which were then memorably shown in the movie's trailers.
05:47As word of mouth from preview screenings began to spread, Paramount insisted that audiences had to
05:52go online and demand screenings in their city, and if it received a million demands, the film would roll
05:57out nationwide. FOMO, or fear of missing out, is one of the most compelling psychological
06:02phenomenas that can be exploited when marketing pretty much anything. Nobody likes to feel like
06:06they're missing out on what everybody else is talking about, and it worked perfectly here.
06:11Paranormal Activity ended up playing wide in the US and around the globe, where it grossed an
06:15unthinkable $193.4 million against its mere $15,000 original production budget. Better still,
06:22it felt like a massive breath of fresh air for the found-footed genre at the time, and though its many
06:27sequels soon enough ran the formula into the ground, the original's lo-fi inventiveness still
06:32makes it hugely watchable even today. 5. Pretending It's All About Liam Neeson Punching Wolves
06:38The Grey
06:38The trailer's for Liam Neeson's 2011 thriller The Grey, selling it as an existential meditation on grief
06:44and man versus nature that actually is, but rather promoting it as a film where Neeson just
06:49punches a wolf. Given Neeson's prior reinvention as an unexpected action hero, the film's marketing
06:55team couldn't resist but lean into it and place excessive focus on an apparent showdown between
06:59Neeson's hero John and a wolf. The trick worked well enough given that The Grey easily tripled its
07:04budget at the box office, but it also racked up a so-so B-minus cinema score, which fell well below
07:10Neeson's more typical action joints, suggesting audiences had been misled about what they were seeing.
07:15It's frustrating that the marketing was so desperate to misrepresent the film as a more
07:19conventional action flick, because aside from all of that nonsense, it's extremely well-crafted
07:24and is a surprisingly affecting drama about man's survival against the elements.
07:284. Circulating Copies Of The Cursed Videotape Without Context
07:33The Ring
07:33The marketing for the 2002 Hollywood remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring
07:38was absolutely genius. Copies of the film's infamous cursed videotape were mailed out to
07:44video rental stores and even placed in random locations, such as a top of people's cars,
07:49with the tape containing no explicit references to the film itself. Even TV spots which showed clips
07:55from the tape didn't name drop the movie's title until much closer to release, but combined with
07:59the number of impressively convincing fake websites about the movie's events, word of mouth quickly
08:04did the rounds about The Ring. It would have surprised absolutely nobody if the remake turned out to be a
08:09soulless, cynical cashing in on the Japanese original that used clever marketing to distract
08:14from a very poor product. So, it's a pleasant surprise that Gore Verbinski's The Ring is genuinely
08:19good. Hell, it's a great horror film. Beautifully filmed, superbly acted by Naomi Watts, and absolutely
08:24living up to the chilling legacy of its lower-budget predecessor, The Ring 2002 is basically the standard
08:30bearer for any English-language remake of an international horror film.
08:343. Exploiting the Audience's FOMO
08:36Avatar
08:37When people express surprise that James Cameron's Avatar grossed $2.847 billion despite leaving no
08:45cultural imprint, they clearly don't remember how cleverly the highly anticipated blockbuster was
08:50marketed. Buzz around the film had been building for years, focused on the mystery of Cameron's new IP
08:55and the innovative new technology that he developed to bring his vision to life. And of course, this was
09:00Cameron's first film since Titanic that was released an entire 12 years earlier, which was enough to
09:05make it an easy sell to audiences. Given that we live in an era where most huge movies are wildly
09:10overexposed in their marketing, Avatar was a major breath of fresh air. The first official still wasn't
09:16released until about four months prior to its release, and the first trailer just a few days later.
09:20The trailers ultimately didn't give away much at all either, focusing instead on a strange new
09:25world, as well as the eye-popping visual effects and Cameron's legacy of classic films. FOMO was
09:30heavily leaned into, marketing it as a must-see 3D event that everyone would be talking about.
09:36And they certainly were, for a few months at least. Yet, as fashionable as it is to rag on Avatar
09:41today, it's still a mesmerising feat of cinema in a lot of ways, taking a simple, elemental story and
09:46encasing it in one of the most spectacular technological flexes Hollywood has ever seen. If you genuinely think
09:52that Avatar 2 is going to be a box office flop, be prepared to eat a healthy serving of humble pie.
09:572. Convincing People It's Actually Real – The Blair Witch Project
10:01The horror movie marketing campaign to rule them all must surely be The Blair Witch Project.
10:07After the found-footage film's premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, it was quickly acquired
10:12for distribution and became an intensely buzzy title as its release approached later that year.
10:17This was in large part due to the film's groundbreaking viral marketing campaign, which began months
10:21before its premiere and played itself 100% straight. Above all else, the film's website,
10:27trailers and posters suggested that the film's three main cast...
10:30...found recording. The studio even went to the extent of having the actors be listed as missing,
10:38presumed dead on IMDb, and encouraging them to maintain a low profile during the movie's initial
10:43theatrical run. Released in 1999, when the general public was still relatively new to the internet,
10:49The Blair Witch Project's fake websites were easily believed by many, allowing the unnerving
10:53mystique of the titular entity to spread like wildfire. The result was a phenomenal return on
10:59investment, as its estimated $300,000 budget netted a worldwide gross of almost $250 million.
11:05On top of that, The Blair Witch Project is a terrifically terrifying piece of work,
11:10perfectly exploiting the audience's fear of the unknown and letting their own imaginations do all
11:15the heavy lifting. It's not for everyone, but it's perhaps the purest and most creative entry into
11:20the entire found-footed genre.
11:221. Urging Audiences to Hang On for Stallone's Heart-Stopping Stunts
11:27Cliffhanger
11:281993's Cliffhanger was understandably marketed on the full-throttle appeal of Sylvester Stallone
11:33placing himself in high-wire peril for our entertainment. The trailers couldn't fixate enough on shots of his
11:39life on the line, and most famously of all, making a frankly ridiculous leap over a gorge,
11:44accompanied by the memorable tagline of Hang On. Cliffhanger's award-winning marketing campaign
11:49belied the fact that it was also a surprisingly good movie, making the most of its peak-era action
11:55star, unique setting, and sweaty-palmed action to deliver a highly entertaining action flick.
12:00Cliffhanger went on to gross over $250 million worldwide against a $70 million budget, ensuring that
12:06it became one of Stallone's sturdier hits of the 90s. And considering that it could have so easily
12:11been all sizzle, no steak, it was refreshing to see a Stallone tentpole that backed up its flashy
12:15marketing with strong filmmaking craft.
12:19I hope you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comment section
12:26below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJayWithA0, or you can
12:31swing by LiveAndLet'sDice, where I do all of my streaming outside of work, and it'd be great to see
12:34you over there, my friends. Before I go, though, I just want to say one thing. Hope you're treating
12:38yourself well with love and respect, my friends, because you deserve all of the best things in life,
12:42and do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise, alright? You're a massive ledge,
12:46and go out there and smash your life goals today. I believe in you. As always, I've been Jules,
12:51you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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