The brilliance of movie marketing will never cease to amaze me. There’s a mindset that seems to say, “as long as we get people out that first weekend, we don’t care what happens after that.” I’m beginning to believe that, even more than fighting for final cut on their films; directors are going to have to start fighting for final cut on the trailers!
We watched The Order last night. And I was amazed to find that it’s not the fairly standard issue thriller that it looked like in the trailers I’d seen. What I remembered from the trailers, and what I expected to see, was your run of the mill religious-themed thriller—a “lone wolf” priestone with “special powers of perception” or some such uniqueness, on the trail of a mysterious Order, seeking to corrupt the noble works of the Church to fulfill it’s own (presumably) twisted agenda.
The movie we saw, however, was much more complicated and interesting than that, all tied up in questions of redemption, betrayal, notions of sin and power, immortality and damnation— all topics apparently too complex or too scary for the marketing genius’ behind this film.
From the IMDB, here’s Helgeland’s summary of the film:
Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a member of an arcane order of priests known as Carolingians. When the head of the order dies, Alex is sent to Rome to investigate mysterious circumstances surrounding the death. The body bears strange marks on the chest, which may or may not be the sign of a Sin Eater, a renegade who offers absolution, last rites and therefore a path to heaven outside the jurisdiction of the church. Alex enlists the aid of his old comrade Father Thomas and of a troubled artist upon whom he once performed an exorcism. He soon finds himself plunged into a mystery only to find himself at the heart of it.
I was so amazed at how different this movie was from the trailer that I remembered that when I came across the trailers in the DVD extras, I had to watch it again, just to see if I was the one that was confused. But, sadly, I wasn’t… Sure enough, the trailer talks about Bernier’s “gift” and a conspiracy within the Church and a pattern of mysterious deaths. But beyond this simple misdirection, they’ve actually cut the trailer to make it sound like there’s stuff going on that isn’t actually happening… there’s references to “the Order” and a group of “rogue priests, outside the jurisdiction of the Church” so that we’re led to believe that the Order IS these renegade priests. Bernier is apparently some kind of supernatural detective. It’s amazing to me— they’re advertising a movie that doesn’t exist and hoping you won’t notice the difference when you get to the theatre.
(The last movie I saw that was this badly misused by it’s trailers had to be Dead Presidents. The trailers for that one led you to believe that it was some run & gun heist film with lots of action gunplay. What it turned out to be, for 75% of the film, was a coming of age story about this group of African American kids, which ended up in a bank heist gone wrong. But if you went into the movie expecting a heist film, you were sorely disappointed. And, if you were the person looking for that coming of age type film, Dead Presidents was the last place you were going to look.)
I’ll never understand the psychology of movie marketing in situations like this. You’d think it would be better to get the audience that would be interested in your movie into the theatre, rather than try and sucker the poor fool that doesn’t know any better in there. But that’s apparently not how it works, at least not in movie marketing 101.
So ignore the trailers on this one… rent it when you get a chance. It’s a pretty interesting ride and well worth the rental.
We watched The Order last night. And I was amazed to find that it’s not the fairly standard issue thriller that it looked like in the trailers I’d seen. What I remembered from the trailers, and what I expected to see, was your run of the mill religious-themed thriller—a “lone wolf” priestone with “special powers of perception” or some such uniqueness, on the trail of a mysterious Order, seeking to corrupt the noble works of the Church to fulfill it’s own (presumably) twisted agenda.
The movie we saw, however, was much more complicated and interesting than that, all tied up in questions of redemption, betrayal, notions of sin and power, immortality and damnation— all topics apparently too complex or too scary for the marketing genius’ behind this film.
From the IMDB, here’s Helgeland’s summary of the film:
Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a member of an arcane order of priests known as Carolingians. When the head of the order dies, Alex is sent to Rome to investigate mysterious circumstances surrounding the death. The body bears strange marks on the chest, which may or may not be the sign of a Sin Eater, a renegade who offers absolution, last rites and therefore a path to heaven outside the jurisdiction of the church. Alex enlists the aid of his old comrade Father Thomas and of a troubled artist upon whom he once performed an exorcism. He soon finds himself plunged into a mystery only to find himself at the heart of it.
I was so amazed at how different this movie was from the trailer that I remembered that when I came across the trailers in the DVD extras, I had to watch it again, just to see if I was the one that was confused. But, sadly, I wasn’t… Sure enough, the trailer talks about Bernier’s “gift” and a conspiracy within the Church and a pattern of mysterious deaths. But beyond this simple misdirection, they’ve actually cut the trailer to make it sound like there’s stuff going on that isn’t actually happening… there’s references to “the Order” and a group of “rogue priests, outside the jurisdiction of the Church” so that we’re led to believe that the Order IS these renegade priests. Bernier is apparently some kind of supernatural detective. It’s amazing to me— they’re advertising a movie that doesn’t exist and hoping you won’t notice the difference when you get to the theatre.
(The last movie I saw that was this badly misused by it’s trailers had to be Dead Presidents. The trailers for that one led you to believe that it was some run & gun heist film with lots of action gunplay. What it turned out to be, for 75% of the film, was a coming of age story about this group of African American kids, which ended up in a bank heist gone wrong. But if you went into the movie expecting a heist film, you were sorely disappointed. And, if you were the person looking for that coming of age type film, Dead Presidents was the last place you were going to look.)
I’ll never understand the psychology of movie marketing in situations like this. You’d think it would be better to get the audience that would be interested in your movie into the theatre, rather than try and sucker the poor fool that doesn’t know any better in there. But that’s apparently not how it works, at least not in movie marketing 101.
So ignore the trailers on this one… rent it when you get a chance. It’s a pretty interesting ride and well worth the rental.
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