Both the static and the motion poster for I Can Do Bad All by Myself follow in the tradition set by many teaser posters for Tyler Perry movies. Sober designs, often using darker tones, that showcase a clear sentimentality in a straightforward but not over the top or cheesy way. It’s quite beautiful and memorable. And the motion version adds to all of these without seeming too gimmicky.

Unfortunately Tyler Perry’s track record with final posters hasn’t been all that great. But at least we got a good teaser.

Let me hit you with a summary:

Two-time Academy Award nominee® (Two Times!) Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a researcher in the year 2019, in which an unknown plague has transformed the world’s population into vampires. As the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out. However, a covert group of vampires makes a remarkable discovery, one which has the power to save the human race.

Doesn’t sound that promising, or original, does it? Not that you couldn’t start from that and make a great movie, maybe even one that touches on profound moral questions, but considering history it doesn’t seem all that likely. And that red thing you see above doesn’t exactly make this bad feeling go away, does it? Although I should point out that the movie doesn’t come out until 2010, so this is a very early teaser poster, maybe others will more ably indicate the qualities of the movie.

Vampires strike me as a hard sell these days. Red blood, white fangs, monsters and supernaturally charming figures. Pick and choose a couple (or all) of these elements, mix them together and there you have your poster, trailer or whatever. It hardly ever escapes from those things and after all these decades of vampires it feels kind of stale.

But if you want to be different, what do you do? How do you run from these things and still market vampires? How do you capture the appeal of these creatures but still make it seem fresh? Honestly, I myself don’t know.

Later…

Sang-hyun (played by top Korean star Song Kang-ho, of The Host) is a priest who cherishes life; so much so, that he selflessly volunteers for a secret vaccine development project meant to eradicate a deadly virus. But the virus takes the priest, and a blood transfusion is urgently ordered up for him. The blood he receives is infected, so Sang-hyun lives – but now exists as a vampire. Struggling with his newfound carnal desire for blood, Sang-hyun’s faith is further strained when a childhood friend’s wife, Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin), comes to him asking for his help in escaping her life. Sang-hyun soon plunges into a world of sensual pleasures, finding himself on intimate terms with the Seven Deadly Sins.

If this wasn’t directed by Park Chan-wook I would have no interest. But it is! So at the least it should be gory, weird and unique.

Both of the posters we see here hide the gore, but still keep the weird. Obviously, the domestic version is significantly tamer, although not exactly tame. It is also feels a little more balanced and less awkward. Whether this is a plus or a minus when it comes to the promotion of this film is hard to say, obviously they are trying to make something that stands out while still maintaining a certain veneer of restraint and seriousness. Tough balance to obtain.

Interesting that they decided to do away with some of the cleavage, isn’t it? Didn’t strike me as all that raunchy, considering the kind of stuff we see nowadays. But I guess they felt it detracted from the overall tone of the poster. Or something like that.

(Via IMPAwards)

BANG!

BANG BANG!

RATATATATATATATATATA!

RATATATATATATATATATA! AGAIN!

Ahmmm… snikit?

Talk about bringing a knife to a gun fight. Seriously white ninja dude, even black ninja dude is shooting a gun, get with the program.

(Via IMPAwards)

The above is the recently released domestic poster for the animation 9. It’s a bit darker than the Russian poster, and has more of a sci-fi/action vibe to it. I mean, “When our world ended, their mission began”?, what is this, Terminator?

The visual style still shines clearly, but I think some of the whimsy that made the last poster so attractive is gone. Not sure I love it.

And since we are talking about nines, a reader points out in comments this poster:

This is for the Thai horror 9.

Also in comments Glenn reminds us of this film from late last year.

Must be something in the air…

This Ice Age posters tells me two things:

- There is more fun to be had with the footprints of the T-Rex than with the actual T-Rex.
- The squirrel thing is still the protagonist of the most interesting Ice Age posters. In fact he remains the the most effective character as far as marketing the movie goes.

Overall, I think the poster campaign for Ice Age 3 has been on par with the one for Ice Age 2. Is that enough? Or are people tired of these characters? One way or another I don’t think you can complain much about the posters.

(Via IMPAwards and Kinopoisk)

The Hangover: Several “Apatow Style” posters featuring the character’s upper body against a solid background.

Land of the Lost: About $35 million at the box-office after two weekends. A drop of more than 50% in the second weekend.

The Hangover: More than $100 million earned after two weekends. Second weekend drop of less than 30%.

The “Apatow Style” wins again. Pay attention, poster designers.

(Yes, I know The Hangover also had a main poster with a lot of people. And the poster campaign is hardly the whole of the marketing campaign. And second weekend drops aren’t dictated by marketing. But I’m making a point damned!)

Scary, funny and compelling in all the right ways isn’t it? Reminds me a little of Coraline, and I mean that in a good way.

Also coming out this year is District 9, a movie about aliens who feels like their rights aren’t being respected. I think. That movie has the following serious poster…

…and it also has a very clever campaign that includes the poster below and these. Honestly, the campaign just might be a little too clever.

But that is not all! This year will also see the release of the Rob Marshall musical Nine. Which loses, because it has no poster yet. (Ok, I know, I know, plenty of time).

And none of those has anything at all to do with The Nines.

So now you know.

(Via IMPAWards, FirstShowing and Kurt Halfyard)

This is kind of a weird poster. Here we have our favorite heroes running either towards or from some unseen something, being shown from sort of a strange angle. And the robots look uncharacteristically cartoonish, considering how much of this series has been based around showing what these giant creatures might look like in real life.

As a matter of fact this poster reminds me a lot of a promotional picture or scene from an 80’s cartoon. I’m not sure if my memory is responding to some specific image from my childhood or to a pattern I noticed only subconsciously. In fact, I can’t explain this feeling at all. But it is there.

And what, exactly, are those flashes of light coming from behind them? An explosion? Killer laser beams? Something else entirely? I have stared and stared, but I’m still not sure.

Just to finish, I find it interesting that all the posters for the second go around of Transformers haven’t featured any of the original good robots except Bumblebee and Optimus. A little while ago I saw an interview by someone related to the film (Michael Bay maybe?) where he explained that they wanted to get more robots in, but ultimately couldn’t afford it. This seems like a good thing on hindsight, since only two of the various Transformers turned out be really memorable anyway.

(Via IMPAwards)

Theory: The T-Rex has been overused in movies, and really overused in marketing materials. True or False?

(Via TrailerAddict)