Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Putting The Woo In Hollywood: Marketing The Movies

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

This week, just in time for the Oscars, we look at some of the most innovative movie marketing. From advertising an R-rated superhero to marketing a silent horror film with virtually no dialogue, today’s movies aren’t just breaking records - they’re breaking all the rules. 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. We'll see you next time. new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to

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pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 8, 2019. You're not you when you're hungry. You're a good hand with a heartbeat. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. When you talk about movies, you inevitably start talking about movie stars.

They not only have exquisite bone structure, but exquisite talent, able to fully inhabit a character while their very name attracts millions of ticket buyers to the box office. That talk can also turn to directors, gifted storytellers who can marshal armies of crew members while pulling great performances out of their stars. But did you know that these talented Hollywood types were also inventors who hold patents? Marlon Brando is not only considered one of the greatest actors of all time, he was also a dedicated

bongo player. I kid you not. Mr. Brando actually holds a patent for a, quote, drumhead tensioning device. Up until the Oscar-winning actor invented this doodad, it seems no good drum-tuning devices existed that were reliable, accurate, and affordable.

He is the godfather of drum-tuning. A couple of years ago, I was standing in line at a coffee shop in Palm Springs and couldn't help but notice actress Julie Newmar was behind us. She appeared in many films, but is best known as Catwoman from the 1960s Batman TV show. Ms. Newmar is also an inventor. She holds a patent for pantyhose that flattens your stomach without flattening your behind.

Newmar was issued a patent in 1975 for a nylon lycra fabric band designed to, quote, enhance the shape of the wearer's derriere while giving it cheeky relief rather than board-like flatness. And I have to say it's quite comfortable. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis holds a patent for a diaper that included a waterproof pocket to hold baby wipes. Sounds handy to me.

Curtis refused to market the product until diaper companies came out with biodegradable products. Director Steven Spielberg invented a dolly track switch. When film cameras have to move with the action, they are put on a dolly, which is a movable platform with wheels that ride smoothly along miniature railroad tracks. Spielberg's patented switch allows for cameras to make sharp, 90-degree turns. Actress Hedy Lamarr, a screen siren from the 30s and 40s, was a prolific inventor. Of her many innovations, she patented a secret communications system that used encrypted radio signals

to remotely control devices like zeppelins and torpedoes. It was a precursor to the wireless communications technology we have today. And then there is Francis Ford Coppola. He has directed some of the most revered movies of all time, including The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.

Coppola filed a patent request for a T-shirt design. The shirt has a grid matrix printed on the back comprising of letters and numbers. Its purpose? To help you tell a second person where to scratch your back. Instead of saying, a little lower,

a little higher, this t-shirt enabled you to say, scratch my back at position C9. Coppola's patent request was rejected. But that's Hollywood. Sometimes you have a hit on your hands, sometimes you don't. In the world of movies, marketing can determine whether you have a hit on your hands or if you don't.

In the last few years, certain movies have broken long-standing box office records. The scripts are great, the action is thrilling, their performance is riveting, but so too is the inventive marketing. Movies like Deadpool, Black Panther, and A Quiet Place are rewriting the playbooks when it comes to marketing movies. They're not only breaking records, they're breaking all the rules. You're under the influence. One day, actress Gal Gadot got a call from her agent to audition for a secret role.

Tired of Hollywood rejection and sick of the 15-hour flights back and forth from her home in Tel Aviv to Los Angeles, Gadot was about to give up on acting altogether. But she figured, why not take one last screen test? She wasn't told what the movie was about or even the character's name. She was simply given lines to read that didn't reveal any significant movie details. So she took the clandestine audition, thought nothing of it, and hopped on a plane back to Israel. Six weeks later, Gadot got another call asking her to return to L.A. for a callback. This time, the film's producer said, I don't know if you've heard of this character over in Israel, but the role is for Wonder Woman.

Gadot was floored. She landed the role, and the rest is literally history. Wonder Woman became the highest-grossing superhero origin film of all time, meaning a film that tells the story of how a character first becomes a superhero. It was the first time the Wonder Woman character had ever graced the big screen. But the film and its marketing were put under a lot of scrutiny because it was the first modern female superhero movie and the first major hero film directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins, all at the height of the Me Too movement.

Many were unsure how Wonder Woman would be received, given that the majority of comic book fans are men. The male lead in the film was played by Chris Pine, a bigger name than Gadot at the time and an obvious selling point for the movie. But Warner Brothers made the decision to leave Pine out of all the movie posters, focusing solely on their strong female lead. An interesting marketing strategy, as most superhero movie posters are jam-packed with famous faces.

To promote the film, Wonder Woman teamed up with The CW's Supergirl. The ad paid homage to the great women of the superhero world, featuring Supergirl star Melissa Benoist, along with Linda Carter, who played Wonder Woman in the 70s, and Terry Hatcher, who played Lois Lane

in the 90s. The commercial was set to a cover of These Boots Are Made For Walking, playing off the characters' iconic boots. Nice boots. You like? I bought them from a friend. Wonder Woman made some other interesting partnerships, like Facebook and Snapchat, where users could try on virtual Wonder Woman tiaras, and NASCAR, where Danica Patrick, the most successful female racer in history,

drove a Wonder Woman-themed car. Walgreens released a movie-themed makeup collection, including nail polish, eyeshadow, and Wonder Woman's signature red lipstick. DC Comics also released an old-school-looking Wonder Woman game called Rise of the Warrior that could be played online or via Snapchat.

Warner Bros. chose to unveil the film's trailer at Comic-Con 2016, 11 months before its premiere. It was the perfect tease to the perfect audience. Comic-Con is the world's largest comic book convention with 130,000 attendees annually. The event takes place in San Diego,

celebrating all things comic book including trailer releases, celebrity panels, video game seminars and artist workshops. The trailer was released a year in advance because 2016 was the 75th anniversary of the character's first comic book appearance in 1941. With smart marketing supporting a terrific film, Wonder Woman earned a staggering $800 million worldwide. The next year, another breakthrough superhero movie

emerged. Also teased at Comic-Con, the first major look at 2018's Black Panther was met with a rare standing ovation. And it was all up from there. Black Panther quashed the stereotypical

white superhero by becoming the first film created by, directed by, starring and marketed by an African-American team. Not to mention taking place in a fictional African technologically advanced nation called Wakanda.

The main character, T'Challa, first appeared in the Marvel Universe in 1966 in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four No. 52. It wasn't until 1973 that Black Panther starred in his own comic book. A month before the big Comic-Con reveal, Marvel released the first official trailer during the NBA Finals. This was a strategic decision, because it got a ton of general viewership as well as targeted viewership of the NBA's predominantly black audience.

Once posted online, the trailer attracted an astounding 90 million views within 24 hours. The soundtrack was co-produced by Kendrick Lamar, who also performed the title song, which was unveiled at the first-ever college football championship halftime show. A shrewd choice, as the game

became one of the most watched events in cable television history with an audience of nearly 30 million. Black Panther was released worldwide in February. Interesting, as late winter is considered to be a slow season for moviegoers.

But the decision was intentional, because February is Black History Month, and Marvel wanted the movie to be a cultural event. In its North American opening weekend, Black Panther's audience skewed 37% African American and 35% Caucasian, upending the traditional paradigm

and more than doubling the African American viewership of most movies. Black Panther's official website featured an interactive homepage that begins with the question, Tell me something. What do you know about Wakanda? It then guides users through a series of shareable GIFs and images that walk you through the history of the fictional country and what they're fighting for. Black Panther also partnered up with Lexus.

The Lexus LC500 was a major character throughout the movie, acting as both a car and a display of Wakanda's formidable technological advancements. The brand debuted its latest model with a Black Panther-themed ad, showing the movie characters racing through tunnels just days before the movie premiered and aired the commercial during the Super Bowl. The agency behind the ad, Walton Isaacson, was co-founded by African-American ad man Aaron Walton, and the commercial was produced by Shawna Williams,

one of a mere handful of women of color to ever produce a Super Bowl ad. Presenting the all-new Lexus LS500. Long live the king. Black Panther isn't the first black superhero, but he is the first of the modern Marvel franchise, joining movies like Titanic and Avatar as one of the highest-grossing films of all time.

And we'll be right back after this message. The movie A Quiet Place posed a formidable marketing challenge. The horror movie, directed by and starring John Krasinski, is about aliens who terrorize Earth by hunting humans, but the creatures can't see, they can only hear. It's a terrific achievement as a film because it tells a taut, tension-filled story with virtually no dialogue. And that was the problem for the marketing department. There is only five minutes of spoken dialogue in the entire film. How do you cut trailers when you don't have the fundamental dialogue elements that would make up a traditional marketing campaign? When planning that first trailer, a crucial decision was made,

and that was not to show the aliens. Seeing them would require the price of admission. But even without the alien creatures or dialogue, the marketing team managed to create a tension-filled trailer. It begins with a family doing chores and spending time together. But you quickly notice they are doing everything silently. They walk quietly barefoot.

They eat soft food. They communicate using sign language. Then words appear that say, if they can't hear you, they can't hunt you. We see two children playing a silent game of Monopoly. Then the boy knocks over an oil lantern by mistake. Father leaps to put the fire out. Family freezes in fear and listens. They hear something jump onto their roof. Father carefully looks out the window. We see the family running for their lives.

Words slowly appear on the screen. A quiet place. Silence is survival. In the subsequent trailers, we're given a little more information. We hear a news report saying a devastating invasion has happened around the world. We see mom is nine months pregnant, prompting the immediate question, how will she give birth silently? We see the tagline, if they hear you, they hunt you. A quiet place, rated PG-13, be the first to see it Thursday night.

Hashtag, stay quiet. The lack of dialogue forced the marketing team to use silence to their advantage creatively. That first trailer aired during the Super Bowl in February of 2018 to an audience of over 100 million. The marketing team created mini-trailers on social media using shimmering audio waveforms that expanded to show silent footage from the movie. They created an interactive press-and-hold feature on Facebook, where mobile users could press a red button and watch tension-fueled scenes from the movie. Instagram asked followers to turn off their sound before watching the trailers. And an innovative app was created that actually listened to you and your surroundings.

It challenged you to stay absolutely quiet. Then it would rate you one of two ways, either you are safe or you were hunted. The results of that creative marketing were record-breaking. A Quiet Place had a $50 million opening weekend. That was $20 million more than the studio had projected. It was the best opening weekend in history for an original screenplay horror movie. It was also the third highest opening weekend for a horror movie of all time, behind only It and Paranormal Activity 3. Part of that success was because the film drew a wider audience than usual for a horror film,

which typically attract an audience aged 13 to 34. But stars Krasinski and Emily Blunt appealed to a broader audience with 20% being over the age of 50. It was a horror film for grown-ups. So far, A Quiet Place has raked in over $334 million at the box office. Remarkable, considering it only cost $17 million to make. One more fascinating side note. Audiences were afraid to make a sound during the film. Silence was imperative to the theater experience.

That meant crinkly candy wrappers and crunchy popcorn weren't welcome sounds, and audiences would turn on anyone making noise. Meaning, a quiet place made money for the studio, but not so much for theaters, because people stayed away from the concession stands. But the award for the most innovative and inventive movie marketing goes to a very unusual superhero, Deadpool. When Deadpool first came on the scene, he was a refreshing juxtaposition to

the clean-cut Peter Parker Spider-Man types we've become so accustomed to. Deadpool was an anti-hero with a potty mouth. Played by Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool is a mercenary whose life is changed forever when he becomes disfigured at the hands of an evil scientist. He's left with superhuman powers and a dark sense of humor. He's also known for casually and frequently breaking the fourth wall. They call him the Merc with the Mouth. The movie was sharp and witty, as was the marketing. The film was to be released around Valentine's Day,

and Deadpool, which is far from a rom-com, saw a chance for humor. The marketing team created a hilarious set of movie posters showing Deadpool in romantic scenarios, like making a heart with his hands, or lying seductively on a bare-skin rug. They even placed the movie title onto fake rom-com movie billboards. But the film had an issue. It was rated R, which not only limited where the studio could advertise, it also meant a huge percentage of the typical superhero-loving audience, kids and teens, weren't allowed to see the movie in theaters,

posing a massive marketing challenge. But to overcome that drawback, they decided to embrace the R rating and turn it into a marketing opportunity. Reynolds sent out a series of fake tweets saying the movie would be rated PG-13. Then, they set up a fake television interview on April 1st showing extra host Mario Lopez interviewing Reynolds. Lopez begins by asking Reynolds typical press tour questions before getting to the fact that it's rated PG-13

and how nice it is the movie will be, quote, But before Lopez can get to his next question, Deadpool in his full suit casually walks in behind him, grabs a chair from the set, and hits Lopez over the head with it, knocking him out cold. Then says, Deadpool also came out with a tongue-in-cheek public service announcement for testicular cancer screening.

Searching for some sexy, sexy time, am I right? Well, here's the thing. Touching yourself could also save your life without making you blind. Seriously, most cancers are curable if caught early. Click on the link and start touching yourself right now. The studio released a series of Deadpool emojis, including Deadpool-masked versions of the classic faces, black-gloved hand gestures, blood splatter, and even a red maple leaf,

either in reference to Reynolds' Canadian roots or because Deadpool was rumored to be Canadian in the original comic. The film grossed over $780 million at the box office and left moviegoers wanting more. Enter Deadpool 2. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it.

They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Sequels don't often live up to the hype. For the creators of Deadpool 2, the true marketing challenge was maintaining the crude humor of the first movie while re-energizing fans with a fresh story.

The sequel invited fan interaction by holding a poster design contest for its official IMAX poster. The winning entry ran nationwide. In an outrageous marketing stunt, Deadpool 2 hijacked the cover art of 16 other 20th Century Fox movies at Walmart. The studio actually inserted Deadpool's face

into the DVD cover art for films like The Terminator, Castaway, and Fight Club. So, for example, when you looked at the DVD for Edward Scissorhands, you didn't see Johnny Depp with, for example, when you looked at the DVD for Edward's Scissorhands, you didn't see Johnny Depp with scissors for hands, you saw Deadpool holding two pairs of scissors. Another

first in movie marketing. Deadpool also guest-edited the holiday issue of Good Housekeeping, with articles like How to Give Your Family the Bird and a letter to readers from the holiday Supper Hero, writing,

When Good Housekeeping called and asked me to be a contributor to their holiday issue, I was completely shocked and flattered. I'm a huge fan. But unlike most men, I read Good Housekeeping for the articles. Again, hilarious. As nothing could clash more than foul-mouthed Deadpool in an apron and oven mitts. In the

first film, Deadpool poked fun at David Beckham's voice. So to promote the sequel, the movie released a video of Deadpool showing up at Beckham's house, making repeated attempts to apologize until Beckham finally gives in.

I can't stay mad at you. Healing hugs. Here we go. Oh, God, finally, that feels so good. You smell amazing, like cinnamon in manhood. Let's never let go. No, no, no, we should let go. Let's let go of this burden together. Just wonderful.

Okay. Deadpool's marketing also took repeated swipes at Ryan Reynolds himself. After real-life Reynolds bought a gin company, Deadpool began endorsing an actual tequila brand. All that crazy smart marketing paid off. Deadpool 2 became the highest-grossing opening day for an R-rated movie in history. It brought in nearly $750 million worldwide, just shy of its predecessor. Making the Merc with the Mouth the Merc with the Money. When promoting a movie, the competition isn't other movies.

It's every other form of entertainment. Which means movie marketing has to expand beyond just a great trailer. That's why Wonder Woman extended an invitation to Supergirl and Lois Lane to be part of its historic launch. It's why Black Panther made history by becoming the first film created and marketed by an all-African-American team, attracting the most diverse audience in movie history. Making it not only one of the highest-grossing films of all time, but the first superhero comic book movie ever to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Deadpool and its sequel colored outside all the lines by hijacking the covers of other DVDs, posting fake rom-com billboards, and even making fun of star Ryan Reynolds himself, maybe a first in the history of movies. And when the marketing team sat down to plan the promotion for A Quiet Place, they faced a daunting task. How do you market a silent movie? But they

embraced the obstacle by weaponizing the silence and, in doing so, set a new record for horror film ticket sales. Not every movie can be a blockbuster or shatter box office records. It takes that ever-elusive combination of a fantastic film paired with inventive marketing. It's a feat that only happens once in a while, because no one has a patent on creativity.

When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the TerraStream. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineer, Keith Oman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian LeFever. Research, Abby Forsyth. Co-writer, Sydney O'Reilly.

If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy an episode titled Coming Soon, The Art of the Movie Trailer, Season 2, Episode 8. You'll find it in our archives. See you next week. Under the influence. It knows what scares you. Hey, I like

your style. I'd like your style even more if you were wearing an Under the Influence t-shirt. Just saying. You'll find them on our shop page at terryoreilly.ca slash shop.