Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Dish Night at the Movies: Marketing Motion Pictures

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

This week, we’re talking about the creative ways Hollywood markets films. We’ll talk about how a low-budget horror movie got a ton of press just by asking people to smile. And we’ll examine the marketing of Top Gun: Maverick – the Tom Cruise sequel that Steven Spielberg says single-handedly saved the theatrical industry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than no nose. You're not you when you're hungry. You're a good hand with all teeth. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Last August was one of the hottest summers on record in New York City. Someone described waiting for a subway in New York that summer as the seventh circle

of hell. It's well known that people in the densely populated city will do almost anything to beat the heat and humidity, including one habit New Yorkers have. They go to a movie. Any movie. Just to escape the oppressive heat and enjoy the theater's air conditioning. That gave advertising agency

Pereira Odell an idea. One of its new clients was an air conditioning manufacturer called Medea. So the ad agency created a 90-minute full-length film and ran it in a Manhattan cinema. The movie title on the theater marquee said, 90 Minutes of Air Conditioning. The tagline? The coolest film of the summer. The entire movie was just a continuous shot

of a Madea air conditioning unit cooling an apartment with the occasional person coming into frame. There was a crowd waiting outside the theater the day it opened. They were admitted at no charge.

They were given free popcorn, free soda, and a discount on a Madea air conditioner. Then, they were treated to 90 minutes of free air conditioning. While most theaters tell patrons to silence their phones, people at this movie were encouraged to not only have their phones out, but to make calls or watch something else on them as they cooled off from the New York heat.

They were even encouraged to chat. It was a crazy idea, but it was a smart idea. The draw was the chill, not the content. This was a brand new product launch and Madea wanted a way to attract press. The 90 Minutes of Air Conditioning movie did just that.

And New York in August was the perfect place to do it. It was a successful product launch. And a novel way to get people into theaters. Getting people into theaters is always a tricky business, and Hollywood employs inventive strategies to fill those seats. Sometimes the marketing budget is so big, it allows for ambitious ideas that can be executed around the world. And sometimes the marketing budget is so small, it's laughable. But as one film discovered, a simple smile can lead to millions at the box office. You're under the influence.

With the Academy Awards around the corner, it got me thinking about the creative ways movies are marketed. When talkies arrived in the late 1920s, audiences marveled at hearing actors speak for the first time. Attendance doubled instantly. But it was a costly upgrade for theaters, who had to purchase expensive sound equipment. Then, just as talkies were taking off, the stock market crashed and the Depression began. Thousands of movie theaters,

who had just spent big money on sound equipment, were now playing to nearly empty houses. Hollywood had thought it was Depression-proof, but by 1932, ticket sales had plummeted. Suddenly, the inexpensive three-times-a-week habit But by 1932, ticket sales had plummeted. Suddenly, the inexpensive three-times-a-week habit of going to the movies became an unaffordable luxury. Hollywood's solution to sell more tickets was to add more sex and violence to the movies.

But in 1934, the Hays Code was implemented. It prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, sexual acts, graphic violence, and more. So, entrepreneurial theater owners, especially in small towns, had to come up with another way to attract

patrons. 60% of moviegoers were women and teenage girls, so appealing to females was essential. That's when some enterprising dishware companies saw an opportunity. There was a pride among women in the 1930s in setting a good table, as dishes were a symbol of social status. But when the Depression hit, everyone had to make do with less.

As time went on, dishes became chipped, broken, and mismatched. Families were reduced to drinking out of pickle jars. So, dishware companies began advertising to theater owners, suggesting that giving away dishes could attract an audience. That's when Dish Night at the Movies began. The theaters would advertise Dish Night at the Movies on the slowest day of the week, and every patron who bought a ticket would get a free plate, cup, or bowl. The dishware companies sold bulk dishes to the theater owners at 10 cents a piece.

So, for example, if an owner bought 700 dishes, it would cost $70. But instead of making just $50 in slow ticket sales, the movie house could attract $300 worth of patrons seeking free dishes, netting a nice $180 in the process. The dishes were advertised as 52-piece sets with modern and pretty designs, and women were encouraged to collect them all, which meant they would come to the movies over and over again. Dish Night at the Movies saved Hollywood.

In a time when weekly attendance had plunged, the Dish giveaway brought people back to theaters. Dish Night at the Movies was an idea that attracted more people than movie trailers. Just as the Depression required smart thinking to generate ticket sales, the movie industry still faces challenges today. Streaming movies, home theater rooms, and the pandemic have taken a big chunk out of cinema revenues. So Hollywood has to think beyond the movie trailer. When James Cameron released

Avatar The Way of Water not long ago, the marketing campaign was global in scope. It had been 13 years since the original Avatar had won three Oscars and set the world record for box office revenue, grossing $2.8 billion

worldwide. If the sequel was to have the same potential, it had to be marketed as a spectacle. In New York City's Times Square, the movie studio did something that had never been done before. It took over 40 digital billboard screens simultaneously to display the characters and spectacular visuals from the movie. So, if you were standing in Times Square, you would have been surrounded by a complete 360-degree immersion

into the aquatic landscape of the film. At night, that 3D experience was mesmerizing. In Venice, Italy, Avatar The Way of Water took over the famous canals with blue lighting, which mirrored the blue bioluminescent waters of the film, while projecting scenes from the movie onto the historic buildings. An aerial view revealed the illuminated canals formed Avatar's A-shaped logo. The Avatar sequels marketing also showed up in homes in an unusual

way. Amazon promoted the film with its Alexa Echo smart speakers. When people asked Alexa to activate the Avatar theme, it allowed them to use sounds from the film as alarms, and weather forecasts were delivered with the Avatar theme music. Alexa could also teach you Navi phrases, the language specially developed for the movie, and you could enjoy Avatar quizzes and fun facts. It was the first time Alexa had ever featured a branded theme. Once activated, it also came with this constant reminder. Just so you know, Avatar, The Way of Water will be exclusively in theaters soon,

and I can make sure you don't miss it. Just say, remind me to see Avatar on December 16th. Not everyone was happy with that feature. But it must have worked. As of this writing, Avatar The Way of Water has grossed $2.2 billion, making it the third highest grossing film of all time. While Avatar's marketing budget was huge, there was another film that got a lot of publicity with just a smile.

In 2022, Paramount released a horror movie titled Smile. In the film, smiling is not a good thing. Characters keep dying in situations right after they smile. The movie was destined for streaming, but after it got a great response from test audiences, Paramount decided to give it a theatrical release. The film was made with a small budget, and it had an equally small marketing budget. Paramount knew that in order for the film to succeed, the marketing needed to somehow attract press.

So Paramount hired actors to show up at live events. If you were watching a Yankees vs. the Red Sox baseball game one night, you would have noticed a man with a blue shirt standing right behind home plate. He was the only person standing at his seat, and he was smiling directly at the camera in a way that can only be described as maniacal. It was so weird that people started tweeting about it during the game. Then, smilers began showing up behind home plate at other Major League Baseball games, which had to be disconcerting for pitchers as they were winding up. At one game, a woman wearing a bright yellow smiled t-shirt was smiling diabolically behind home plate.

It got to be so alarming that security approached her. All of which unfolded live on camera. Another smiler showed up at the Today Show. When Al Roker filmed a segment out on the sidewalk, the Smiler photobombed him while sporting a deranged grin over his shoulder on live TV. These Smilers got so much press

and provoked so many posts on social media that the Smile movie was suddenly on everyone's radar on opening weekend. The movie, by the way, smiled all the way to the bank. It was made for just $17 million and grossed over $200 million. Tom Cruise had a big hit with Top Gun way back in 1986. But 36 years

is a long wait for a sequel. The first clue came in 2018 when Cruise posted a photo that showed him in flight gear staring at a fighter jet with the words, Feel the Need. Then a poster appeared in 2019.

It didn't show Cruise's face, but instead showed the back of his character's leather aviator jacket covered with military patches. The poster said, Tom Cruz in Top Gun Maverick, coming in 2020. Now, it was official. Pete Mitchell, call sign Maverick, was back.

But Paramount had a marketing problem to overcome. 51% of movie tickets are purchased by people aged 14 to 39, and almost none of them were alive when the original Top Gun was in theaters. In July of 2019, Cruise did something he's never done before. He showed up at the San Diego Comic-Con event. Comic-Con was started back in 1970 as a comic book convention, but has expanded to include all forms of pop culture, including movies. It attracts over 130,000 people each year, most

of them aged 25 to 34. It was an ideal event to get young fans excited about the Top Gun sequel. Crews and castmates took to the stage to talk about the film and show behind the scenes footage of the movie in progress.

A few months later, another poster was released, showing Cruise looking up at a fighter jet in the sky, featuring a release date of June 2020. The first non-trailer video released was a featurette, explaining the fact that Tom Cruise and the director did not want to use computer-generated effects. So, they insisted actors be filmed in actual fighter jets. Just a little higher. Perfect. Great camera position.

Thanks to Tom, all the actors are becoming accustomed to the G-forces by all the training that they're doing. It is aggressive. You can't act that. The distortion in the face. They're pulling 7.5 HEs. That's 1,600 pounds of force. As Cruise said, you literally see the actors inside the cockpits struggling with the G-force.

That was a major part of the marketing strategy. Show potential moviegoers that the actors were really in the fighter jets in all the scenes. It was exciting and thrilling footage. Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, all the momentum hit a brick wall. Theaters shut down. The release date was pushed from June 2020 to December, then to July 2021, then to November. Then things got very quiet for over a year. Paramount pushed the release back yet again, aiming for May 2022. In January of 2022, Tom Cruise appeared in a two-minute video promoting the AFC Football Championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals.

The video intermixed images of football and the new Top Gun sequel, all underscored with the movie's theme music. Two teams coming off heart-pounding wins. Two organizations on the edge of history, both committed to being the best of the best. Then, in April of 2022, another featurette was released. This one gave moviegoers another piece of information. Tom Cruise, who is a licensed pilot,

designed an all-encompassing aviation training course for the cast. But the most surprising reveal in this featurette was something you probably don't think about when you watch this movie. The actors had to film themselves

in the cockpit. There was no cameraman or director up there in the F-18s. So with all the G-force coming at them, the actors had to remember their lines and learn how to operate multiple cameras at the same time. The actors also had to learn how to run the cameras because when they're up in the jet, they have to direct themselves essentially.

Okay, I'm rolling. I had to really teach them cinematography and the lighting so that they understood what's going to look good on camera. Sun angle is great. As the launch date approached, large Top Gun displays were installed in theaters. They looked like giant fighter pilot helmets, and the visors became screens that showed clips from the movie. Not long after, Lady Gaga teased that she was writing a song for the new movie.

Then in May of 2022, there was a Top Gun Maverick premiere aboard a historic aircraft carrier. The cast paraded down a red carpet, but the biggest star wasn't there. Then, an Airbus chopper suddenly came into view. It landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier and out popped the pilot,

and it was none other than Tom Cruise. The man knows how to make an entrance. A few days later, Lady Gaga released a full video of the song, Hold My Hand. Another featurette was released that explained the rationale behind fighter pilot call signs. In the Navy, every single pilot each have a call sign. Rooster, watch your back, Phoenix. You gotta Navy, every single pilot each have a call sign. Rooster. Watch your back, Phoenix. You gotta move, Coyote. Next,

the film had a big premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. As crews and his fellow cast members waved from the red carpet, F-18 jets made a dramatic flyover, leaving behind smoke trails

of red, white, and blue. Meanwhile, some brands did a tie-in with the movie, including car manufacturer Porsche and Applebee's restaurants. Applebee's actually did an amusing commercial where Cruise does his characteristic non-sanctioned flyby, making all the drinks and plates rattle and crash to the floor inside an Applebee's restaurant.

The message? Get a free ticket to Top Gun Maverick when you spend $25 at Applebee's. Yet another featurette was released telling audiences that Cruise and the director insisted on waiting until theaters had reopened to release the film because they wanted people to not only see the movie on the big screen, but to enjoy the incredible advancements in sound technology. The mix that we had on the first Top Gun was extraordinary, inventive. And we needed that level and also the sounds that we have today. You know, the Dolby Sound, the Atmos.

What you're going to hear, we want to give that immersive experience. You know, always all the jet stuff. Then, if all that weren't enough, Cruise released a video welcoming fans to the summer blockbuster. Hi, everyone. Well, summer is almost here, and Top Gun Maverick is going to kick it off. Our extraordinary cast and crew gave it their all to bring you the most immersive, authentic, and entertaining cinematic experience. There's real jets, real popcorn, on the biggest screens exclusively and only

in the theaters. So I hope you enjoy. We've made it for you. And just before the movie finally hit theaters, Tom Cruise took late-night talk show host James Corden

for a hilarious ride in his vintage 75-year-old fighter plane. We're going to have a top gun day. Hang on. So when you say we're going to be flying in that, who's going to be flying in that? I'll fly you in that. But you're not a pilot.

You're an axer. I fly airplanes also. Right. With all due respect, you played a lawyer in A Few Good Men. I wouldn't want you to represent me in court, okay? Cruz then gives Corden some safety instructions. So this is your seatbelt, okay? You've got your parachute underneath.

It's not going to happen. But if it does happen, if we lose an engine, it catches on fire, and we decide we're going to jump out of the airplane, I'll get rid of the canopy, I'm going to pitch the nose up 45 degrees, and then I'm going to go inverted, and I'm going to dump you out of the airplane.

Now, when you dump out of the airplane, here's your ring. Are you joking? You just dumped me out of the airplane. This is not going to happen. But the best was yet to come, as Cruise then took Corden for a ride in a real fighter jet, piloted by Cruise himself, and at one point actually inverts the jet.

Oh, my God! Oh my God! Hang on. Oh my God! Shut up! The video was hilarious and was a big piece of the final push for the movie. It was viewed over 30 million times. Yes, Top Gun Maverick had a big budget and a big star. But unlike most sequels, it didn't pin its hopes on people loving or even seeing the original movie. As all parents know, interesting a younger generation in an old movie is almost impossible.

Instead, Cruise and Paramount worked incredibly hard to market the movie, in spite of being hip-checked by the pandemic three years earlier. But all the effort paid off. Top Gun Maverick has an incredible 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a level few movies ever reach. It was the first film of 2022 to join the billion-dollar club, topping $1.4 billion at the box office. The film has become Paramount's biggest hit in its 110-year history.

Top Gun Maverick cruised past Titanic to become the seventh-highest-grossing film ever in domestic ticket sales. And after four decades of acting in major films, it was the first Tom Cruise movie to achieve a $100 million opening weekend. Steven Spielberg was overheard telling Tom Cruise the film may have single-handedly saved the entire theatrical industry. Not bad for a sequel that arrived 36 years late. In all the films we discussed today,

we never talked about movie trailers. Yes, trailers are a big part of a movie launch, but they do not ensure a blockbuster. Back during the Depression, theaters feared they would all go out of business. But a simple idea saved Hollywood. It wasn't the trailers. It was dish night at the movies.

And when you fast forward to today, movies still need more than trailers to succeed. Avatar, The Way of Water, created a global marketing campaign that transformed Times Square and even the canals

of Venice into a blue, immersive experience. Top Gun Maverick had to overcome the huge marketing problem of promoting a sequel to a young audience who were not alive when the original came out.

The answer was to create a marketing campaign that gave movie fans a deep behind-the-scenes story before they even saw the big story. Then there was Smile the movie. Its budget was probably smaller than the catering budget on Avatar and Top Gun Yet it managed to attract big opening weekend press attention Simply by hiring actors to smile at live events A big budget doesn't guarantee a big hit

And a small budget almost guarantees it won't be a hit. Yet, as Tom Cruise demonstrated, you still have to work your tail fin off to promote a big budget movie. And a low budget horror film proved that when you don't have money, a smile can go a long way when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio.

Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine. Under the influence theme by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Music provided by APM Music. Follow me on social at Terry O. Influence. This is Season 12. If you're enjoying this episode, you might

also like For Your Consideration The Hollywood Oscar Campaigns the Public Never Sees Season 4, Episode 8. You'll find it in our archives wherever you listen to the show. You can now find our podcasts on the Apostrophe YouTube channel.

And if you think there are too many ads in a show about advertising, smile. You can now listen ad-free on Amazon Music. See you next week. Fun fact. Students at the real Top Gun school Listen ad-free on Amazon Music. See you next week. Fun fact. Students at the real Top Gun school are given a fine if they quote the movie.

The training facility insists on a serious, no-nonsense attitude. Roger that.