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.
By now most of you have probably heard about the controversy surrounding Captivity billboards as part of the film’s outdoor ad campaign in Los Angeles and New York. Captivity is a horror (some say “torture porn”) film starring Elisha Cuthbert. The billboards (featuring key art designed by Art Machine Digital) depicted four panels with the headlines “Abduction, Confinement, Torture, Termination” along with the appropriate modern horror florescent lighting color scheme and scary visuals:
This film outdoor campaign outraged some residents in the Los Angeles area. In some sort of modern ad speak for “My dog ate my homework”, CEO Courtney Solomon of After Dark Films (the studio that produced the film) claimed the wrong files were sent to the printer and all the executives were in Las Vegas attending ShoWest at the time. We have no idea whether this was the case or not, but we don’t think the Adobe InDesign final production mechanicals sent to the printer were labeled “TOO SCARY. PLS DO NOT USE. FOR YOUR FUN ONLY!”.
And if you have wondered how film execs really talk, Solomon went on to muse:
Personally, I wasn’t going to go with this campaign. I thought it was OTP (over the top). Nothing like this can ever happen again.
Is this “OTP” quote meant to publicly lay blame elsewhere, like he (the CEO) was some sort of “lone voice of reason in a wilderness of ‘oh no, we’re producing this sucker whether you liked the comp or not’ ad design approval craziness”?
Although the offending outdoor billboards were eventually removed (and replaced by a not-as-OTP “Captivity Was Here” billboard), the proverbial outrage pile-on had already begun.
Speaking of pile ons, one thing that is being held captive is a rating for the film. The MPAA has put a one month hold on the ratings process for Captivity, which puts the May 18th release date in jeopardy. According to MPAA Senior VP of Advertising Marilyn Gordon:
“The sanctions in this case are severe because this was an unacceptable and flagrant violation of MPAA rules and procedures. After Dark Films presented their ads for approval, as all companies are required to do if they wish to receive an MPAA rating. However, their ads were summarily rejected for their graphic depiction of a woman’s torture and death. Yet After Dark proceeded to post them on billboards anyway, and these ads appeared in some of the most prominent public locations in Los Angeles and New York. It is now up to After Dark Films to restore good faith with the MPAA.”
The MPAA is technically a trade group — it was created to “advance the interests of movie studios” (it sues alleged movie file sharers on behalf of the film studios, for example). What most people do not realize is that those “interests” being represented are those of the six major studios: Sony, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Fox, and Warner Bros. Since the smaller studios responsible for Captivity (Lionsgate and the producer of the film, After Dark Films) are not “signatory” agencies of the MPAA (and this sort of ad approval controversy has happened before), it’s not surprising the MPAA came down hard on the “little guys” in this case. All studios voluntarily submit films (and ad materials) for review by the MPAA, otherwise they cannot advertise in most outlets or be shown in many North American theaters. It remains to be seen how this will effect the release of Captivity, or if this bit of publicity will help the film gain any useful “OTP” exposure.
The Washington Post reports that The Road to Guantanamo movie poster (for the new documentary film about the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison) has been rejected by the MPAA:
The image that ran afoul of the MPAA is tame by the standards set by the amateur photographers of Abu Ghraib. It shows a man hanging by his handcuffed wrists, with a burlap sack over his head and a blindfold tied around the hood. It appeared in advertisements for the new film “The Road to Guantanamo,” a documentary with some reenacted scenes, that follows the fate of three British men imprisoned at Guantanamo for more than two years before being released with no charges ever filed against them.
What’s with all the banned film advertising lately? As we have mentioned before, the MPAA approves all print advertising material related to any film that carries an MPAA issued rating. Like most forms of regulation and censorship, the guidelines the MPAA follows are not always clear, but big no-nos for one-sheets include “depictions of violence, blood, people in jeopardy, drugs, nudity, profanity, people in frightening situations, disturbing or frightening scenes.” We’re pretty sure that the actual Gitmo doesn’t follow those same guidelines, however.
George Clooney and Matt Damon star in the political thriller Syriana. The movie was inspired by Robert Baer’s book See No Evil: The True Story of a Foot Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism. Directed by Stephen Gaghan, the writer of the film Traffic, the film interweaves multiple stories against the backdrop of the international oil industry and terrorism.
The “internets” have been abuzz about the recently released Syriana movie poster. The stylized graphic shows a “See No Evil. Hear No Evil” conceptual image of star George Clooney. While this type of distressed poster treatment is nothing new in the world of one-sheets, the logotype as a blindfold certainly grabs the viewer’s attention. (And also invokes, at least to some of us, the iconic images of blindfolded Americans from the Iranian hostage crisis which began in 1979.)
