Imaginary Worlds - Alternate Movie Posters

Episode Date: November 15, 2018

Long ago, before we found out about new movies from tweets about teaser trailers that advertised full-length trailers – the first glimpse of a new movie would be the poster. Movie posters used to be hand-drawn illustrations, and many of them became iconic. Not so much anymore. But a growing movement of artists, galleries and print companies are creating alternative movie posters that re-imagine ad campaigns for current and former blockbusters of sci-fi, fantasy and horror genres. I talk with Rob Jones and Eric Garza of Mondo, author Matthew Chojnacki and artists Matt Taylor, Sara Deck, Tracie Ching, and Tim Doyle about the art of alternative movie posters, and a business model that has become controversial. Here is the link to the episode page with a slideshow.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We've never smelled so good. Shop Old Spice Total Body Deodorant now. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Molenski. Matt Taylor is an illustrator in the UK. And when he was in college,

he had a part-time job at a movie theater, which he loved because they used to get a lot of posters, more than they ever actually needed. So sometimes the staff would... Like not steal it exactly, but just kind of put it to one side for a minute and like see if anyone notices. And then maybe, like maybe today, like I'll leave through the side door of the building instead of the front door. Just so, you know, if that poster is still there and no one's claimed it, then, you know, I'm kind of within my rights to take it home.

My college dorm room was also full of posters, usually the ones I got from the discard bin at my local Blockbuster. We did get in trouble at one point because the I think it was the one sheet for Charlie's Angels was printed on foil and they sent in three and all three vanished because it was a cool poster because it had them all kind of in silhouette, like hot pink and foil. And I was like, yeah, I want that for my bedroom. That looks amazing. So when they came to start promotion and they found that there were no posters for Charlie's Angels, we kind of got read the riot act and had to kind of stop it a little bit. But, you know, we stopped it for a week or two and then we carried on stealing the posters. Now, for most of Hollywood history, movie posters were drawn by hand.

And there was a lot of care put into those designs. And of course, many of those posters became iconic. But I remember in the mid-1990s, noticing that movie posters weren't as artful as they used to be. I kept seeing billboards of giant heads of movie stars with just the title and their release date. And I was actually working at Warner Brothers at the time, and I remember there was a lot of talk about how stars were more powerful than ever. It was worth paying them unprecedented amounts of money because the audience didn't care what the movie was about.

If Tom Cruise or Will Smith was in it, they'd show up. And the posters reflected that cynicism. This is also when Photoshop came around and I saw the same cliches over and over again. If it wasn't a giant head, it was a montage inside a giant head or a hero standing up against a landscape. I remember even in 2012, looking at the first Avengers poster, which was a collage of the actors very awkwardly cut and pasted from different publicity shots. And I was thinking,

man, if this was back in the 70s or 80s, that poster would have been really beautiful. Turns out Rob Jones was thinking the same thing. His company Mondo is part of the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain based in Austin. And in 2004, he was working on silkscreen posters for rock concerts. And he wondered, what if we hired artists to create alternate movie posters that were much cooler and more ambitious than the original posters? We were kind of cowboy about it. We're like, let's do whatever we want. movie posters that were much cooler and more ambitious than the original posters. We were kind of cowboy about it. We're like, let's do whatever we want.

And then after a while, we realized, oh, shoot, we're getting a lot of attention. We need to make sure we're legit about this as the scene just kept growing larger and larger. Now, if Rob's company, Mondo, had gotten a cease and desist letter from the studios, they could have been shut down. So they preemptively approached the studios and said, look, these artists are doing something really cool. Consider them proofs of concept. People love them. They want to buy them. Do you want to get in on this thing?

And to their credit, the studios said, all right, sure. And that's when alternate movie posters became a new kind of art and business. And there are a lot of other players in this game now, like Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn and Spoke Art Gallery, which started in San Francisco. But Mondo is still the powerhouse in the field. Now, Eric Garza is one of the creative directors there. And since he and Rob are responsible for assigning most of the posters that they sell, I was curious, what's their decision making process? How do they decide which movies they want to commission posters for?

It's just a constant open communication between myself, Mitch, Mitch Putnam, our third creative director in posters, and Rob. We're all just kind of wrapping constantly and being like, what do we need to do? What should we do? And if an artist finishes a poster or once a project gets wrapped up, the immediate question is, well, what do we put them on next? Given that you guys have no shortage of ideas, I assume that somebody has got to say no at some point. I mean, how does that work? Usually the only time that really happens is if Mitch and I are fighting like cobra and mongoose in an oven. Then we turn to Eric and say, break the tie. And Eric's like, great.

Thanks. I can't wait to feel like a kid of divorced parents. Let me make a choice. I'm still stuck on the image of a cobra and a mongoose fighting in an oven because it would make a really good illustration. Speaking of which, when you look at all the posters on Mondo's site, it's clear that animation, sci-fi, and horror are the dominant genres. And it's also a smart business choice because fantasy genres already have a built-in fan base that likes to buy collectibles. Also, the artists like working in those genres. likes to buy collectibles. Also, the artists like working in those genres. The illustrator Tracy Ching created a really cool poster for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It's a dark

illustration where the characters are in half shadow with deep reds and yellows. I mean, it almost looks like the poster for a Victorian theatrical show. I think there's a lot more to dive into when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy because there's this really creative perspective that you're already dealing with. Like there's already material to work with there that you don't really have to try to make interesting. It's already interesting on its own and then you can build on that that amazing aesthetic that already exists. What's so interesting to me about alternate movie posters is that they function so differently than the original posters.

Because a movie poster is supposed to be a tease. It's trying to get you to buy a ticket. But alternate movie posters are looking backwards on movies you've already seen and presumably love. For instance, take E.T. One of the first posters in 1982, this is an iconic poster I'm sure you've seen, shows a little boy's hand, the finger touching the big glowing finger of this alien creature. And I remember as a kid gazing at that poster in the lobby because there was so much that was left

to my imagination. Now today, one of my favorite alternate movie posters is for E.T. It's by a French artist named Laurien Dariou. It's the scene when Elliot's mother opens the closet door and sees E.T. hiding with the stuffed animals. The poster is her point of view, and it beautifully illustrates the way E.T. is trying to look vacant among these stuffed animals. But he's still vibrant and alive. The only thing that's the same as the original poster is the logo and the credits underneath. Now, I don't know what I would have thought of this poster in 1982, but I love it now because it speaks to my childhood nostalgia for 1982. And by the way, I'm going to have a slideshow

on my website of all the posters I discussed today. Matthew Tanaki wrote two books about the alternate movie poster scene. And he says, you know, sometimes these posters are actually more accurate than the original ad campaign. Like there's a poster for Bambi by the artist Rowan Stocks Moore, where the stag is staring at you with his antlers silhouetted against a night sky. And Bambi's just hovering in the distance in the landscape. It was a dark looking movie poster. And if you think about it, Bambi's mom died, you know? It wasn't like a laugh fest for kids.

And a lot of those tales, you know, have real dark beginnings. So I like these movie posters that kind of sell it for how it really was. And how did the studios feel about the artist taking so much artistic license? Some studios don't care at all what they do. Others really care a lot. And how do the studios feel about the artists taking so much artistic license? Some studios don't care at all what they do. Others really care a lot. Like Tracy Ching says. Universal in particular, when it comes to the Universal monsters, it's ridiculous the amount of hoops they have to jump through. For Frankenstein, the thing, werewolf, what have you.

If it's a direct representation from the film, it gets real sticky. The sticking point is often the likeness of the characters. And that gets complicated if they need approval from an actor or the estate of an actor who's died. And sometimes artists are working on a time crunch. They can't wait around for permission, which has led to some creative solutions. I got to do a poster for the man who fell to earth. Tim Doyle is one of the founders of Mondo. He's now an independent illustrator. What's funny, though, is that they told me we could draw David Bowie, but his estate was really tough. So you either had to do it perfectly or just not do it at all. So I found a way to do a man who fell to earth poster without drawing David Bowie's face. And it did pretty well. So that was fun.

Can you describe what you did? Yeah, I just I drew him as the alien figure. But, you know, his face is in shadow as he's literally falling to Earth. And the poster itself is it can hang either way, like he's falling to his damnation or rising to his salvation. And the titles are inverted to where you can hang it either direction. And as awesome as these posters look online, a computer screen can't really capture the vibrant and electric colors in real life because these are silkscreen posters. Even Matt Taylor can only guess what his final poster will look like until it shows up at his house.

You know, like he did this really intense psychedelic poster for Thor Ragnarok. Like I opened the box and I literally just had to kind of stop and look at it. And not just from a like a point of view of me looking at my own artwork and thinking this is good because I look at this poster now and I can see mistakes that I made on it. But just like the vibrancy of the printing is unreal, which I think partly was because that one was printed on like a yellow paper stock. And so the vibrancy of that yellow kind of really pushes through and just makes the whole thing feel a lot brighter. Sarah Deck is an illustrator in Ontario. She did a very spooky poster for Night of the Living Dead.

The actress Judith O'Day is flat up against a door while the zombies lurk in the foreground. The idea is to feel trapped. The idea is the feeling of claustrophobia. And Sarah did three variations of this poster in sepia, black and white, and almost black with glowing green handprints that are dripping in an ominous way. And as much as Sarah loves seeing what the silkscreen posters look like in real life, she loves even more hearing about the experience of fans when they buy these posters. It's a ritual for the fans.

They unroll it. A lot of them have their own weights. I see it online. They've got their own special little poster weights to hold it because the paper needs to relax before you frame it. Then they go and they take it. They make the pilgrimage and get it framed.

And then they hang it on their wall and everybody's so excited and happy. Like, see what I mean? Like, it's a whole thing. That's part of it. That's part of the screen print. And the more I look at these posters, the more I wish they had been the original ad campaigns. But I know that could never be the case. I mean, even when the artists get permission

to do the likeness of a movie star, the actors are rendered so artistically, it can take a second to recognize their faces. But on a movie poster, those faces need to be read in a microsecond. Although Sarah says alternate movie posters are still marketing something to consumers, they're advertising your memories.

It's a reminder. Like people have reminders all the time of the things in their lives that they just really, they cherish. And for some people, people that are pop culture fans, it is the stories in the movies or where they were when they saw the movie, what part of their lives this represents. It's almost like a beautiful image in a photo album on your wall. It's personal. It's so personal.

And I think that that's why it's so appealing. And Tim Doyle says these posters are great for people who like the types of movies that never had a lot of memorabilia. You know, I mean, we live in a world where John Carpenter's The Thing, which was a bomb at the box office, is a cult hit still today. And so the fact that there's any merchandise for it at all is kind of a novelty. Back when I was doing the Blade Runner prints, there was nothing you could buy for Blade Runner.

I think I just realized something. What's that? I own one of your prints of Blade Runner nice which one? is this the one that it's got like an Atari on the corner and it's got it's Deckard who's he's eating noodles

in the rain yeah it's from behind holy shit oh my god because I was in Austin and I saw that and I didn't know what it was i didn't know it was an alternate movie bus or anything but i was like oh my god this is gorgeous and so as you're talking i'm looking at it and i look at the signature and i'm like is that tim doyle that's me

it's framed in my office a dark blue and neon pink illustration of a rainy, dystopian cityscape from a movie that I fell in love with when I discovered a VHS copy of Blade Runner at a store called Video Wizard that was just a bike ride away from my childhood home. But the business of alternate movie posters has changed a lot since I bought that silkscreen print of Blade Runner back in 2012. There's a lot of money at stake now with these posters. And money changes things, for better and for worse. We're going upmarket just after the break.

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when it arrived at his house? Well, if you ordered that poster from Mondo's website in January of 2018, you would have paid $60 for it. Last I checked, it was selling on eBay for $215. Every day I'll get a couple of emails from people saying, oh, you know, can I can I buy this? You know, can I buy your Thor poster? And it's the same reply, which is like, unfortunately, no, It's a limited edition. It came out. It's sold out. If you want it, you can buy most of it on eBay. So then it becomes a question of like, how much do you want it?

You see, the business model that Mondo pioneered is for limited runs on movie posters. Eric Garza and Rob Jones say they do that for two reasons. First, there's still a small operation. At this point, we're releasing so many posters in a year that it doesn't really actually make sense that we can't just keep all of these screens or films ready and on standby. We fill an entire warehouse. It's having that many screens ready for constant production,

so it's just a way to kind of keep the wheels rolling so that way something is not evergreen. Yeah, if you go to, if you went hard on every freaking release, I don't know, it would seem kind of gross. It seemed more like a money grab, which is just, I don't know, not that great. We do occasionally try to do timed editions.

And that's mainly because a poster just seems so freaking out of sight that we're like, oh man, it's really going to piss too many people off if we don't make this more widely available. But this is also a choice. Rob does not love the fact that we live in an age when everything you want is available all the time. He thinks that limited editions are like a throwback to a time when things had a sense of value that was more than just what you paid for them. It's kind of like back in the day when I used to hunt so hard for records.

I remember when I spent a summer in London working at a pizza restaurant, and every weekend I would just go to, I would try to go to every record shop in London that might sell singles of my favorite band at the time. It was so great when I would find the one thing I was trying to look at all these other joints to discover. You know, it felt like Indiana Jones almost. And now I can get it at a click and I don't even bother to listen.

I get that. I also have fond memories of hunting down rare comic books, bootleg cassettes of concerts and other buried treasures. But for younger fans of movie posters who grew up in a world where everything is just a click away, they're not happy about these limited editions. And it's not just a question of convenience. They just consider it a cool thing to do to not be exclusionary. But Rob says, Welcome to the world. I miss out on a lot of stuff too. I'm like, oh my God, they sold out of the tiki mugs I was trying to get today.

I had three people trying to get them with me. I mean, we experienced the same kind of thing, but not with Mondo, obviously, because we work here, but for other companies. And it just, I don't know, when you get it, it makes it that much more sweeter. Have you been surprised, by the way, how much some of these posters go for resales on eBay? Yes. I have been floored before. By the same time, not as much because I do know, yeah, if you love something enough, you're going to make sure it's yours.

Just the madness of crowds, I guess. But no, I mean, it's some of the stuff, you see it in person and you have to go hunt for it. It's really gorgeous. It's a different experience when you see it right in front of your face and that kind of justifies the price, I think, it's some of the stuff, you see it in person, and you have to go hunt for it. It's really gorgeous. It's a different experience when you see it right in front of your face, and that kind of justifies the price, I think, sometimes. Matthew Chernacki, who literally wrote the book on alternate movie posters, is not surprised by how much they're going for on eBay.

And he says this is a problem with all collectibles. Like when he goes to Comic-Con, he sees people walking out with huge bags of merchandise that they're clearly not buying for themselves. They're what Matthew calls flippers, people who want to clean out those tables and then resell everything marked up online. And so when Mondo announces they have new posters for sale... You know, if you can get in there in 30 seconds

and you have the luxury of sitting at your computer at work as the Twitter announcement comes in and then you have 30 seconds, you know, it gets a little bit tiring and it does wear out fans that legitimately want that new Star Trek poster. The idea that they roll their eyes and they like have to go to eBay to spend $400 when the poster costs 30, that stinks. eBay to spend $400 when the poster costs $30, that stinks. Especially when it's the day of. It's one thing if you're buying it two years later and the value went up. That's fine. But if it's the day of, the idea that you want it and then five minutes later it's going for 10 times the value on eBay, that's just wrong, I think. It can be a bummer for the artist, too. Like, on one hand, the fleeting nature of the posters makes them really desirable. But when people resell Tracy Ching's posters for two or three times the original price, she doesn't get any of that money.

It's something I've struggled with because I really hate the fact that somebody is literally just doing it to make a profit. I'm not sure what to do with it. I certainly don't like it. I really wish that for the really limited stuff that I'm able to offer, I was able to offer it to people I knew that weren't just going to throw it on eBay. Another challenge for artists doing alternate movie posters, there are a lot more of them now, which was not the case when Tim Doyle started with Mondo in 2004. You know, it was really easy to get people's attention back then. Like, I had my artwork pop up on the front page of, you know, io9 or go viral on Reddit. And, you know, Slash Film was covering it and Ain't It Cool News back when that was relevant.

Now it's such a crowded market, getting anybody to notice you is tough. And, you know, for people who collect movie posters, there's only so much room on their walls. Eventually, some of these dudes are going to get married and their wife's going to be, what are you doing? You know, we have bills. All our furniture can't be flat files. Tim is actually worried the market is a bubble. I realized a few years ago, if I'm going to make a living and make a go at it as a silkscreen print artist, I can't live or die by these investment collectors. And so I started opening up my runs to, you know, we'll have a limited edition first, but then we'll print it again in an open edition to where anybody could buy it. And, you know, I got a lot of pushback

from that initially. People have been telling me my career is over for 10 years now. Wait, wait, why was that so controversial with people like getting mad at you and saying your career is over? Well, because they couldn't see these things, these art prints, as anything other than investment vehicles. Matthew Chinaghi also thinks it's a bubble, but he imagines it a little differently. I think it's a moving bubble, if that makes sense. No, but it's a good image. Yeah, think of it like a moving bubble. And I think the original fans of the alternative movie poster movement have probably moved on to collecting other stuff and ephemera that's

out there. So these 5,000 people that are fervent collectors kind of disappear, but then there's others to replace them. I mean, I see what he's getting at. Like, let's take the Alien franchise. It's one of the most popular films for alternate movie posters. Alien and Aliens came out before a lot of these buyers were born. So it stands to reason that new generations of fans will keep discovering the Alien franchise, and they'll want posters of their own. And you know what else is a moving bubble? Nostalgia. Teenagers today will eventually become nostalgic for the hit films that are out right now, and they'll want artwork that will

remind them of their fondest pop culture memories. And because alternate movie posters are making money, the studios are taking notice. And official movie posters are starting to look a little more creative. Also, their business model has changed. There are not that many stars anymore that can open a movie just based on their name and a giant head on a billboard. The real money is in sci-fi fantasy franchises with licensed characters. And if you reboot a character or a franchise, how do you get people excited about it? I mean, there are obviously a lot of different ways, but when it comes to the poster,

you need a good illustrator to figure that out. And the studios need multiple ad campaigns from the poster tees to the Blu-ray edition, across social media. So they're hiring artists from the alternate movie poster scene. I mean, even Disney and Marvel have commissioned shows at Mondo's gallery in Austin. Then I began to wonder, if the studios are co-opting this movement,

are they kind of ruining it? Tracy Ching says, nah. It's not like, you know, when your parents joined Facebook, it ruins Facebook, right? It's not like that. I think, if anything, it's encouraging because you're getting this recognition from the institution that you got started in this for. You know, they're the ones producing movies. You love movies. Now they're

recognizing something you're doing in relation to what they've been doing. So I think if anything, it's encouraging. And of course it's wonderful to get a check from a major studio. Right. And again, as long as they like are respectful, right. It's totally cool to have this bleeding of, of like the commercial institutional side of things merging with, you know, the other the indie, the the artists in the streets, that sort of thing. I mean, the movie poster is a strange thing. It's a work of commercial art about another work of commercial art. And since a lot of theater owners are worried that people won't show up for movies because they can just stay home and watch them on their devices, I say why not turn your theater marquee into an art gallery full of beautifully designed silkscreen posters?

And to get the full effect, you have to see them in person. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Matt Taylor, Matthew Chinacki, Sarah Deck, Tracy Ching, Tim Doyle, Eric Garza, and Rob Jones of Mondo. And if you're wondering, the guys at Mondo are not big collectors of alternate movie posters. But Rob's home is full of collectibles. He has a Doctor Who pinball machine,

a replica of a rocking chair from A Clockwork Orange. But his current obsession is hunting down the first concert poster at the Houston Astrodome with Judy Garland and the Supremes. Yeah, that happened. The Supremes played Houston with Judy Garland opening, or with Judy Garland headlining. And she did not do a good show. But I want the poster so bad, but I cannot find it. Although Eric says something else will catch your attention when you first get to Rob's house. Before you walk in his house, there's a welcome mat that says, welcome, motherfuckers. And if you know Rob, he doesn't call you by your name.

He calls you motherfuckers. So it really is just, you know, walking into inside of his head. Imaginary Worlds is part of the Panoply Network. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emolinski and imagineworldspod. And I'm including a slideshow of some of the posters that we talked about on my website, imaginaryworldspodcast.org.