Indy, NO!
Indy, NO!
Apr 23I cannot believe it’s already summer movie season. Iron Man, Wall-E, The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, and much much more…just weeks away. The kid’s actually a full-blown toddler now so I’m hoping we can get a good babysitter and maybe see a few of these at our local moviehouses.
And then there’s Indy 4, which my wife has verbally committed to seeing with me; I mention that here so as to place the commitment in writing, on the web, thereby assuring she dare not back out for fear of a rampant backlash on all the various “Matt’s marriage” blogs.
Anyway, Anne Thompson at Variety is just one of a couple folks reporting some middling reactions to the flick; in a post last week (Jesus, where was I that I missed this?) she even suggests that *gasp* the Lucasfilm PR and marketing strategy may be (shocker!) FLAWED?!?!
The advance buzz on Indy is getting damaging enough that Lucas and Spielberg may want to reconsider the current strategy of waiting until May 18 to show the film to everyone at once. That’s a long way off.
It’s pretty astonishing just how backward Lucas and Spielberg still are when it comes to marketing a film in the internet age. Back in 1999, which was still practically the infancy of the web community compared to today, you could defiantly push a movie’s first screening to just a few days before its release and get away with it. Fans would be content simply to bask in the glorious mystery of the unseen blockbuster, and their heads would fill in the gaping blanks with the kind of premeditated grandeur that assures a positive reaction, even if the movie sucks.
After Phantom Menace, however, such breaks were cut on an increasingly rare basis. In the modern moviemaking cycle, it’s a far wiser strategy to show your cards and let the chips fall…unless, of course, your movie does indeed suck, in which case it makes sense to screen it for critics and advance audiences at the last minute…or not at all.
Whether Indy 4 is “the best of the Indy sequels” or a chunky steaming cinematic turd, Lucas and Spielberg are still ten years behind the times when it comes to how to effectively market movies. Then again, their “fans” number well, WELL beyond the internet movie nerd cabal, so they’re probably not at all worried.
Indy 4 could easily suck–it will still gross bazillions. Lucas will buy yet another fifty vintage cars, the stage will be set for Star Wars Episode VII, and life will go on.
