Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Sweaty Billboards: Marketing The Movies

Episode Date: March 14, 2026

With the Oscars around the corner, we take a look at creative movie marketing.We’ll talk about miniature billboards that promoted Ant-Man.A billboard that actually sweated to promote an action film.And we’ll discuss a movie that was saved by a Beatle – then got banned, and was a box office success.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. The red carpet has been associated with movie premieres and the Oscars for a long time. But it predates the Oscars by at least 2400 years, which also prompts the question, why red? Well, the history of the red carpet is interesting. Historians are not unanimous on its true origins, although many point to a Greek playwright who mentioned a red carpet in a play called Agamemnon, dated 458 BC.

In the play, the wife of the main character speaks of a, quote, floor of crimson broideries to spread for the king's path. Now back then, and through to the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the royal color was purple. But the purple used at that time was said to be a reddish purple. In the Elizabethan period between 1558 and 16, In 1903, the color purple was made officially regal by legislation. Laws determined what colors could be worn by different social classes.

Over time, the color purple worn by royals became more and more red. In the 1700s, the French discovered how to dye various fabrics in a bright red hue. By the 19th century, red was the symbol of status. The color red was said to elicit attention, as it was a source. associated with danger, power, lust, and aggression. Historians say the Red Carpet Treatment was first referenced in newspapers between 1821 and 1861.

European aristocrats landing in North America wished to maintain their status, thus demanded red carpets at events like weddings, balls, and receptions. In 1922, Sid Gromond, of Gromond, of Gromond's Chinese theater in Hollywood was the first to use a red carpet for the film premiere of Robin Hood starring Douglas Fairbanks.

The movie had cost $1 million, a staggering amount at that time. Interesting to note that Hollywood in the 1920s was seen as the epitome of decadence. Films were not seen as an art form, but rather a form of cheap entertainment for the masses. So, the red carpet was used, to give the premiers a much-needed touch of class.

While the first Oscars were held in 1929, it didn't become a public media event until 144. But it wasn't until 1961 that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chose to add a red carpet to its festivities. Two years later, that red carpet began to be filmed outside the venue, showing the stars arriving in their limousines. When the event was first broadcast in color in 1966, the public and Madison Avenue saw the power of the red carpet.

Since then, the phrase red carpet treatment has become shorthand for first-class treatment and status. While red carpet events are no longer just reserved for film stars, no red carpet is more famous than the one used in the world of motion pictures. While the red carpet still attracts movie stars to movie events, it's getting increasingly difficult to attract the general public to movie theaters. It all comes down to marketing. It's incredibly expensive to promote a new movie, and it's difficult to persuade people to actually get off the couch and visit their local cinema.

But some recent movie marketing has employed surprising creativity, and some of those ideas have been bold. and one movie we'll talk about today was banned, and it was the best thing that ever happened to it. You're under the influence. When Marvel was getting ready to launch the movie Ant Man, starring Paul Rudd, it created a highly unusual pre-promotion. As a rule, the movie industry tends to use outdoor billboards quite extensively

to signal the upcoming release of a new film. Ant-man is an unconventional hero, as he is a superhero the size of an ant. So the advertising campaign was designed to be equally unconventional. The idea was to use billboards, but unconventional billboards, miniature billboards that were only 12 inches tall. These tiny billboards were perfect replicas of traditional billboards, which usually measure 10 feet high by 22 feet wide. Marvel Canada placed 2,500 tiny billboards in towns across Canada

advertising the launch of Ant Man. The miniature boards, standing at shin level, were placed all over towns on sidewalks, on top of mailboxes, and next to park benches. Marvel also had another idea. Why not put the world's smallest billboard up in Canada's smallest town? That title belongs to Tilt Cove in Newfoundland. Total population?

Six. The six residents range in age from 60 to 90, and three of them sit on the town council. That one tiny billboard in Canada's tiniest town generated a lot of Ant-Man press. Well, all this creativity paid off. Ant-Man has made over a half-billion dollars worldwide. Speaking of billboards, Netflix created a spectacle to launch Extraction 2 starring Chris Hemsworth.

In the adrenaline-packed film, Hemsworth's character, Tyler Rake, embarks on a risky mission to save a family who has been imprisoned by a ruthless gangster. Hemsworth dangles from skyscrapers, narrowly misses a fiery helicopter, and fights his way through a long list of bad guys, all of which is to say he perspired. a lot. So Netflix constructed large billboards of the actor's face that literally dripped sweat.

Here's how they did that. Lasers were used to cut tiny holes in Hemsworth's forehead to replicate pores. Then, a water source was placed behind the billboard that pumped water through the holes at a pressure and frequency

that mirrored the consistency of sweat. It was a first for billboards. Netflix wanted passers-by to interact with the extraction two billboards, so instead of placing the boards over busy streets and highways, they were placed strategically on sidewalks. If they were further away, people wouldn't be able to see the beads of sweat. But at eye level, people were able to actually touch the sweating billboard and take selfies. As planned, those selfies were all posted to social media where they went viral.

Netflix says extraction 2 became the most viewed title of the week watched by an estimated 42.8 million people during its first three days on the platform. The sequel also drove interest in the original extraction film, which then became the second most watched film of that week. Clearly, the sweat equity paid off. The original Mean Girls movie hit screens in 2000, Written by Tina Faye, it has become a pop culture classic.

Then, in 2024, trailers for an updated version of Mean Girls were released. But it wasn't a remake or a sequel. This reboot was a musical based on the Broadway production of Mean Girls. But Paramount made an interesting decision. It did not market the movie as a musical. The studio decided to base most of the advertising, on nostalgia and affection for the original movie by deliberately mirroring scenes and iconic lines

without revealing the song and dance aspect. There were two audiences for Mean Girls in 2024, the audience that grew up with Mean Girls, and the younger audience that didn't. First, the studio took the unusual step of releasing the original Mean Girls movie on TikTok in 23 separate clips for one day only. That had never been done.

done before. It was meant to grab the original audience to remind them why they loved the movie so much. Then the studio needed to attract a younger audience, so the trailer contained a line that said, this is not your mother's mean girls. Now, while that line attracted a younger audience, it had an interesting effect on the original audience. They hated it. It offended them. It made them feel old. Sensing the bad feedback, Paramount pivoted and changed the line to say, a new twist from Tina Faye. That suggested the movie was still a Tina Faye project, but updated and new.

That seemed to appeal to both audiences. But it was still a gamble not to say it was a musical. There is a heartly debated philosophy in Hollywood that most people hate musicals. But at the same time, I see that La La Land made more than $400 million, Rocket Man made $113 million, and a star is born raked in $301 million. So somebody somewhere likes musicals. Paramount's president of global marketing said that to launch,

by saying musical, musical, musical, you have the potential to turn off a large chunk of the audience. It was a tricky marketing problem. But it appeared the gamble paid off. The opening weekend was pretty good, earning $28 million at the box office. But something happened on week two. The box office took a nose dive,

dropping close to 60%. The studio worried that when people discovered it was really a musical, it led to lukewarm word of mouth. One of the most shared videos on TikTok showed an audience groaning en masse when one of the characters breaks into yet another song. But in spite of, or because of, that tricky marketing, mean girls, the musical, did end up with a pretty decent box office,

cracking the $100 million mark, earning $104 million worldwide as of this writing. When we come back, a movie star goes way above and beyond to promote his new movie. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like Red Carpet Marketing, the Business of Award Shows, Season 10, Episode 13, where we tell the story of Sandra Bullock receiving the Golden Raspberry Award for the worst performance of the year, then she wins an Oscar the following night. You'll find the episode on your favorite podcast app.

One thing that doesn't happen often enough is when the star of a movie goes all out to promote their film. And by that I mean doing more than the usual press tour or talk show appearances. Take the movie Marty Supreme. It's about a man named Marty Mouser who will do anything to become the world's best ping pong player. The movie is set in the 1950s. At one point in the film, Marty Mouser, played by Timothy Shalameh, introduces orange ping pong balls as a way to brand himself and to disrupt the traditional white balls used in table tennis.

that color would become a key marketing tactic. One of the first marketing elements that appeared for Marty Supreme was an 18-minute video of a Zoom meeting that was leaked to social media. It was an interesting thing to witness, as most people never see the internal meetings behind movie marketing. This Zoom meeting was between Timothy Shalamey and the studio marketing team. After everyone has introduced themselves, Chalomey takes control of the meeting by outlining what he wants to achieve. Yeah, I just wanted to like make sure that we're all, like I said, align because I'm so excited.

Like when I wake up every morning, I think culmination, integration, like all of us, and fruition, fruitionizing, which is not a word, obviously. but fruitionizing the release of this movie, like really making sure it comes out in a great way. I'm thinking big. You know what I mean? This has got to be like one of the most important things that happens on planet Earth this year. Shalamee begins rolling out his ideas to promote the movie,

like being on the cover of Wheatie's cereal boxes. I think I should be on thousands of weedy boxes. To me, it's marketing 101. Then Shalamee tells the team they should leverage the color orange. If you think symbol of American greatness, what do you think of? Bald Eagle. The flag.

Flag, American flag. Orange Bald Eagle. No. The Statue of Liberty. Oh. Shalemae wants the Statue of Liberty to somehow be painted orange. The marketing team is not sure what to say. And then you see the Statue of Liberty

and it represents everything. It's always represented. But if it's orange, now you're thinking Marty's Supreme. Then Chalemay, inexplicably, thinks the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal could also be painted orange. Next, Chalemay wants to paint a blimp orange with the words Marty Supreme on one side and dream big on the other. We should have the blimp go above Flognol and rain ping pong balls.

Marty Supreme branded. Rain ping pong balls on everyone. I love that idea. Yeah. I do too. I think one thing we'll have to kind of take into consideration is just the safety hazard. Exactly. Something we'll think about.

Someone wonders if the blimp might remind people of the Hindenberg crash. The longer you watch this Zoom meeting, the funnier it gets. A movie star, unhinged with unworkable ideas, and the marketing team caught between sucking up to him and trying to bring reality into the meeting. If it's a difference between, you know what I mean? Someone losing an arm putting out the movie, but someone gaining an arm intellectually when they see it, I'm a fan of the latter. Then the meeting comes to a close. Before we all jumped off, because those were like really just my ideas, Ollie, like take them or leave it.

And do what you want with it. It's just like, you know, I've obviously like broken records as like, you know, young lead of movies recently. But, you know, you do what you. No, like you pass us the ball. We're going to, we're going to, thanks for sharing. We're definitely going to. Okay, amazing. At that point, Chalemay asks everyone to do a 60-second meditation before signing off,

then insists that everyone sign NDAs. Hilarious. I can't tell you how hard I laughed watching this video. As it turned out, that entire Zoom meeting was written and directed by Chalemay. It was a completely satirical scripted video and played to straight perfection with hesitant nervous underlings and a lot of bad fruitionizing corporate jargon. It was all a marketing stunt, and it became a viral sensation. Salome and the studio did, in fact, get a giant orange blimp to fly around the country.

He did appear on a limited edition box of Wheaties, and there was Salome designed limited edition orange merch available. Then in a big stunt, Shalame became the very first person to actually stand at the top of the giant sphere in Las Vegas as the sphere turned into a giant orange ping pong ball. Marty Supreme is an American film that comes out on Christmas Day, 2025. When you think about it, Marty Supreme is an indie period piece about a guy playing ping pong. How do you sell that?

It needs big hype. and Salome was all in on promoting the film. Every one of the stunts went viral, and, by the way, were less expensive to produce than a traditional marketing campaign. Marty Supreme became the biggest opening day ever for A24, the indie studio behind the film. It is also the third biggest Christmas Day opening of all time

for an R-rated movie. As of this writing, Marty Supreme has cracked the $100 million. mark, and projections suggest it will probably gross $180 million worldwide. When we come back, a movie is banned, and it's a marketing godsend. One of my favorite movie marketing stories is for Monty Python's Life of Brian. As you may know, the Cheeky 1979 movie is about a man named Brian, who is born on the same day in a stable next door to Jesus Christ.

Brian of Nazareth then spends his life being mistaken for the Messiah with hilarious results. EMI was bankrolling the picture originally, but when Chairman Bernard Delphont finally got around to reading the script, he was shocked and horrified. He said his company would never fund such a blasphemous atrocity. Python director Terry Jones and his cast and crew were about to travel to Tunisia to begin filming two days later. The pythons thought they were dead in the water.

They desperately started searching for new investors, but were rejected by every movie studio they approached. Finally, one American studio offered to put up half the $4 million budget, but the pythons couldn't make a movie with only half the money. Eric Idle was a good friend of Beatle George Harrison. He told Harrison the python, the python, were in danger of losing the film. George Harrison was a big fan of Monty Python.

He loved the TV series, and he really loved the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As a matter of fact, Idol had met George at the premiere of that movie in 1975. So when Idle told Harrison they were urgently looking for a studio to finance the movie, George said, I'll take care of it. Idle said, what do you mean?

George said, I'll handle it. Idle said, you don't understand, we need $4 million. George replied saying, Leave it with me. To rescue the movie, George Harrison created a company called Handmade Films with the sole purpose of financing Life of Brian. Harrison then mortgaged his Friar Park home in order to raise the $4 million. And that's how Life of Brian got made.

Handmade films would go on to be covered. an important force in British cinema and produced enough good films to merit its own celebratory film festival called the other Handmaid's Tale Film Festival. Eric Idle said George Harrison finance Life of Brian for one simple reason. He just wanted to see it. As Idle said, it's still the most anyone's ever paid for a cinema ticket. Then the movie got even luckier.

It got banned. Almost instantly, Life of Brian was condemned by religious groups. The Catholic Archdiocese of New York called the film a blasphemy, adding that it was a crime against religion. The Catholic Film Monitoring Office said it was a sin to even see the film. Three distinguished Jewish organizations, representing 1,000 rabbis, condemned the film, describing it as a vicious attack on Judaism and the Bible.

The Lutheran Council described it as a profane parody. Many towns in the Bible Belt of America refused to screen the movie. Life of Brian was banned in Norway for an entire year. It was banned in Ireland for eight years. It was banned in Italy for a decade. In the UK, a number of local councils banned it, including some that didn't even have a cinema. But all the condemnations and bands were the best thing that ever happened to,

life of Brian. The more people protested, the more tickets it sold. In Sweden, it was advertised as so funny, it was banned in Norway. It became the most successful British movie of the year in North America. People picketed outside New York movie theaters with placards that said the group's name gave away their diabolical intentions, that Python equals serpent equals Satan. Yet in its first four-day screening at Cinema One in New York, one of the city's biggest theaters, Life of Brian recorded record box office receipts. A New York Times critic called it delirious offensiveness. The movie had been due to open on 200 screens across the U.S., but after various religious groups protested against it, the number of screens was tripled. On BBC TV,

Python's John Cleese and Michael Palin debated the Bishop of Southwick. a pillar of the Christian establishment. The bishop rolled his eyes calling Life of Brian a 10th rate film. That only spurred more ticket sales. Life of Brian would become the UK's fourth highest-grossing film of 1979. Some call it the funniest British comedy of all time. Maybe John Cleese summed it up best when he said all the protests and all the bands actually made him

a rich man. Marketing movies isn't easy anymore. During the pandemic, audiences learned to stay home and stream instead of heading to theaters. Domestic box office last year was still 24% below pre-pandemic levels. So it takes incredible effort and fruitionizing to get people up off the couch and out to movie theaters. And remember, movie marketing

has to fight with all the other marketing out there just to get noticed. That's why Ant Man dared to use tiny billboards to get big attention, and why a sweating billboard stopped people in their tracks. And it's why actor Timothy Shalame went above and beyond the call to promote Marty Supreme by standing on the top of the Las Vegas sphere. It's also interesting to note that all the stunts mentioned today cost only a fraction of what a traditional advertising campaign would cost. And all those stunts were shared around the world on social media.

It takes a lot of money to make a movie these days, and it takes a Herculean effort to market it. And if you're really, really lucky, your film might just get banned. When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terstream Mobile Recording Studio, producer Debbie O'Reilly, Chief Sound Engineer Jeff Devine, research Patrick James Aslin,

theme music by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick, and James Aiton. Tunes provided by APM music, follow me at Terry O'Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. Terry's top slogans of all time. Number 14. Harvey's, makes your hamburger a beautiful thing. See you next week.