I often say I don't understand studio marketing departments. It's usually after I've seen a movie on DVD that tanked at the box office, only to find that, not only is it a pretty good film, but it's also nothing like the film I expected from the trailers. (Dead Presidents and The Order are two films that immediately come to mind in this category.) It's the slavish devotion to the opening weekend box-office receipts that apparently drives this marketing technique… the theory that it's better to get a bunch of bodies into the seats opening weekend, even if they're going to hate the movie they didn't want to see, rather than have a modest opening and let the people that might be interested find out about the film.
But, as I blogged the other day, I couldn't really buy into the idea that ABC had decided on the Desperate Housewives opening, despite knowing that complaints were likely. I didn't see the point in stirring up controversy to get ratings for Monday Night Football and figured Housewives was doing well enough that it couldn't really get much from the very lame what-passed-for-acting quality of the MNF pre-show.
Silly me.
Desperate Housewives was Number 2 in last week's Nielsen's, its highest ratings yet.
Guess it's true. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
(I still stick by my puzzlement over the whole movie trailer thing, however. Some things just don't make sense!)
But, as I blogged the other day, I couldn't really buy into the idea that ABC had decided on the Desperate Housewives opening, despite knowing that complaints were likely. I didn't see the point in stirring up controversy to get ratings for Monday Night Football and figured Housewives was doing well enough that it couldn't really get much from the very lame what-passed-for-acting quality of the MNF pre-show.
Silly me.
Desperate Housewives was Number 2 in last week's Nielsen's, its highest ratings yet.
Guess it's true. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
(I still stick by my puzzlement over the whole movie trailer thing, however. Some things just don't make sense!)
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