Posterwire.com is a movie poster weblog. From images of the latest Hollywood one-sheets to vintage movie posters, this film poster weblog hopes to offer a bit of insight into film key art.
For the upcoming 2005 remake of The Bad News Bears, Paramount went with an interesting illustration of Billy Bob Thornton and the rest of the Bears Little League baseball team for the new Bad News Bears poster. We say interesting, because: A. film studios rarely use traditional illustrations as a one-sheet anymore, and B. the new Bad News Bears movie poster is in itself a remake of the original 1976 Bad News Bears one-sheet.
Jack Davis is a well-known illustrator and cartoonist, who influenced generations (beginning in the 1950s) with his work in a number of varied outlets, including Mad Magazine, Tales From The Crypt horror comic books, and even Time magazine. His distinct and humorous style of cartooning is easily one of the most copied styles of cartoon illustration, even to this day.
Davis had a long career illustrating movie posters, which brings us to his cartoon one-sheet for the Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal comedy. Davis did a great job in his caricatures of the films players, especially of Matthau — the one-sheet’s cartoon style fit the tone of the film perfectly.
As for the Billy Bob Thornton poster remake, we can only wonder what approval process gauntlet this artwork went through, so it’s hard to knock any occasion when a studio uses the near-extinct animal known as movie poster illustration. It is an interesting choice in that the new poster is patterned so closely (at least in layout and concept) after the original Davis art. (We’re still trying to find out the identity of illustrator of the new Bears poster, so let us know if you have any ideas.)
Update: We just found out that artist Phil Roberts did the illustration for the new Bad News Bears poster. (Thanks for the info, James!)
Remake Remakes Poster
Not only has Paramount remade the movie THE BAD NEWS BEARS, but Posterwire (the wonderful movie poster blog) reports that they’ve remade the movie poster, too.
As you have discovered, the illustrator of the new Bad News Bears poster is Phil Roberts. The art director is Scott Dobson. Scott works in the office next to Rigel Morrison at Faction Creative.
We like your site!
-B
Thanks for the info, Bryan. We always appreciate info and insight from those responsible for the work. :)
I heard I got a nice review on your site, Thanks. I’ve been sketching and illustrating movie posters for 20 years now. My first was “Hotdog” the ski movie. As of recently I’m known for all but one of the “Rugrats” series, “Wild Thornberrys”, “Detroit Rock City” and “The Last Shot”. The majority of my time is sketching poster concepts for photo shoots. On “Bad News Bears” I sketched every possible scenario for a photographic solutions. Billy Bob tested to scary with the baseball mom’s ( ’cause of “Bad Santa”) for a family movie. The Producer and director were big fans of the old poster, and so I got asked to recreate it ( because of “Detroit Rock City”). I did a final illustration that’s more of a finished painting, but they chose to print the color comp. The final one sheet was the color comp sketch, it mimiced the original more. ( You should see the good painting ) All the celebrities liked their characatures and everyone signed off on it the first go around, Marshas agent was the only pain in the ass. Greg Kinear is the toughest person I’ve ever had to capture, he’s a male Sharon Stone..”plain white bread” if you know what I mean. Oh! and I was only given two days to do the art used in the final one sheet. Glad you like it.And Thanks Jack Davis, there never be another like you, you set the bar real high. Phil
Here you can see a sketch of what the first one looked like before it was completed and approved for final illustration.
If you look closely, you can see that some of the characters are bigger, as well as the sign.
Harry
http://www.geocities.com/hangelikas/BEARS.jpg
here’s a gallery of jack’s film work from another site.
http://www.impawards.com/designers/jack_davis.html