The Amazing Spiderman
The Amazing Spiderman is a good example of how expectation
can affect how popular a film may be. Spiderman a well-known name in popular culture
to even the most super hero illiterate, getting his start in comic books before
moving onto the quirky 1967 animated series, super hero movies really became a
risk to film studios as several films involving the caped crusaders we’re
negatively reviewed by critic and movie goer alike in the mid- late 90s
including Joel Schumacher’s infamous Batman and Robin (1997) and Kenneth
Johnson’s Steel (1997) which starred NBA star Shaquille O'Neal. Sam Raimi’s
Spiderman was the start of a revolution in which would end up in Super hero
movies dominating our movie screens until present and certainly for several
years to come. The reboot of Spiderman came to a bit of a surprise to many
fans, out with Toby Maguire and in with new boy Andrew Garfield expectations were
mixed some were open for a fresh start while others were less than thrilled. (http://www.comicvine.com/spider-man/4005-1443/forums/how-high-are-the-expectations-of-the-amazing-spide-628799/) Expectations do effect the enjoyment of a
movie particularly super hero ones where there will be a mix of casual viewers
mixed in with the hard core fans of the series
The Amazing Spiderman was represented differently to Sam
Raimi movies; While Raimi’s were much lighter in tone, The Amazing Spiderman
decided it wanted to be darker akin to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight series
which were a lot darker compared to the aforementioned Joel Schumacher movies. This
can be seen by looking at the teaser trailer and posters for both movies. People could interpret this as the studio
trying to get rid of the image the previous movies had set which had a lot of
silly moments more so in the third instalment.
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| Spiderman's darker reboot |
The Amazing Spiderman had a big and in some ways odd
marketing campaign which catered to wide variety of audiences, one of the first
official pieces of merchandise were strangely Pez dispensers more interesting
this was the first time people got to see what the main antagonist of the movie
“The Lizard” was going to look like. These were handed out at the 2011 Comic
con and these were very effective tools. Later down in the timeline construction
toy makers Mega Bloks released their tie-in play set at an annual toy fair that
recreated pivotal scenes in the movie almost a whole year before the release,
this was effective and action figures were a lot of focus for their merchandise
campaign, do you want to find out what happens in Spiderman? Well just go on
down to your local Toys R Us. For the
kids there were a whole bunch of different food tie ins Kellogg’s cereal, Pop
tarts, candy bars and different fast food tie ins such as Burger King which
would sell small figurines with each child’s meal, there was also a promotion
at a chain of restaurants called Carl Jr’s in which if you turned up dressed as
Spiderman you would get a free Bacon and Cheeseburger. With a franchise as big
as Spiderman there are going to be a lot of different merchandise aimed at
child (and big fan alike) such as the Spiderman Web shooter much in the same
way Andrew Garfield’s Spiderman as opposed to Tobey Maguire’s organic Webbing
in the Raimi Movies, there was even more obscure merchandising including
Spiderman After shave and Spiderman trainers. Merchandising is very effective in
promoting a movie especially in Spiderman’s case, young children all the way to
the much older fans of the series will be interested in getting this memorabilia
for their own collection and it will get people talking about Spiderman.
Spiderman’s viral and interactive marketing there is a lot
to say about because a lot was done and in turn it shows how the two types of
advertising are very effective, there was a pseudo news broadcast that featured
a story on whether or not Spiderman was a criminal. There was a Spiderman game
which was updated weekly in which you would do a different activity and there
would be a secret code hidden and when you used the code it would unlock
different items including fake Daily Bugle news reports and the last unlockable
was blueprints on how to make a web shooter. There was also a much more in
depth campaign called ARG which a website called markofthespider-man.com which
gave out 6 twitter accounts each account tweeted out a different location in
the United States and the first select number of people to get there would
receive a hoodie and a mobile phone, then later on they would get a call and in
teams would go around the city spray painting stencils of Spiderman, these
involved campaigns are great for promoting a movie this one effectively had
people go on a scavenger. It gets the consumers involved with the movie and it’s
going to get people talking on many different social media sites which in turn
got a lot of word of mouth advertising for the movie.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0U_7V8SeoY
San Diego Comic con, one of the biggest events in pop
culture catering to many different different genres, whether it be games,
movies, comics, novels or trading cards it’s going to be there. This event has
become a way for studios to gather hype for an upcoming project. Spiderman
having the following it has is perfect for Comic Con and has its own hall for
it, Hall H at the 2011 comic con there was a Q and A panel in which the
audience got to the ask the cast questions to get information about the movie,
this is a good way for the film studios to interact with the audience and they
can share their thoughts about the movie, similar to test screenings but a much
smaller scale in terms of what the audience was actually shown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMcyclphuNs
Generally speaking when a movie gets a bad review, people
are going to be less than inclined to go and see it. Normally before people go
and watch a movie they may look at a review for it. Reviews have a big impact
on a movie, Batman and Robin is a good example for the most it normally gets
torn apart in reviews and rightly so, people aren’t going to want to watch it,
however there is an interesting case. A
2003 “Romance Drama” Movie by the name of “The Room” is regarded as one of the
worst movies ever made but it has quite a large cult following screenings still
happen regularly, it peaks peoples curiosity, it’s a so bad it’s good
situation. The Amazing Spiderman overall garnered positive reviews from critic
and fans alike
For the Amazing Spiderman, distribution was fairly simple it
had its theatrical release then several months later it was released onto DVD
and Blue Ray for your viewing pleasure most movies follow suit however there
have been different cases in which movies have slightly altered the way they
release their movie. Ben Wheatley’s a field was released in the cinema, on
television, DVD and on demand TV on the same day, while it may not look the
most cost effective way of doing things the movie gathered a lot of coverage as
it was the first ever movie to this sort of thing which gathered interest.
Assimilation into Culture, this is when a type of media
normally being a film or television series will reference something that
normally you’d have to be a fan of what it was referencing to get it, for
instance in the recent Man of Steel movie when General Zod destroys a satellite
you can see on the Satellite that it says “Wayne Tech” Wayne Tech= Bruce Wayne=
Batman and thus the reference is made and you have a little chuckle to yourself,
it really makes you feel like you are in the “in crowd” Unfortunately there
were none for The Amazing Spiderman, there nearly was. To coincide with the
movie “The Avengers” which was released the same year during the big fight
scene in New York you were going to be able to see The Oscorp Tower in the
Skyline, however it was too far into production by the time so it never came to
fruition. However these type of references get fans of the series involved and
excited.
ARG Campaign
Viral Campaign
A Field Distribution
Spiderman Webshooter
Spiderman Assimilation into culture
Spiderman Merchandise
