The LTK campaign is certainly the nadir of Bond advertising, made all the worse because the scrapped Peak stuff was so wonderful.
Title changes, Dalton's head pasted on a different body for the teaser, the US and UK one sheets just scream lameness to me.
But back to the original point - what if LTK had an amazing advertising campaign instead of a bad one?
If you quantify it, at a reasonable, believable rate, I still don't think it would have made a major difference.
Figure a 10%, 20%, or 25% increase in box office even (which would be an amazing jump) because of an incredible ad campaign, better posters, more trailers, etc. - LTK would still be a huge under performer.
As others have said, word of mouth is key.
And when you think about it - has anyone here honestly made a theatrical ticket purchase decision based SOLELY on a poster? I can't say that I have. I love posters, have a great collection, but I see films based on so many factors, and posters isn't even in the top 10 for why I'd see a film.
And let's take the previous box office under performing champ - TMWGG. While the main poster was very derivative of the previous film, L&LD, there were two great teaser posters - the wonderful Villains style, and the teaser poster of the Golden Gun in its components, there were lots of tie in posters (Guiness, travel posters, 2 Roger Moore contest ones, etc.) The film was, I think its safe to say, pretty well marketed. It just didn't do well.
But it wasn't dark. So, I'm sure it would have been more acceptable to viewers and not a total outcast like
Licence to Kill. But yeah, I see the point you're making. The posters don't really make that much of a difference, but if they had those kept those Peck posters, I'm sure it would have at least make people think twice about seeing this movie. That artwork was different than what came before, and I'm sure that if it was used, it would have interested a lot of people because some people do judge a movie by it's poster. I don't. Honestly, I could care less about the poster. But at the same time, you want to draw your viewers into something. For example, when I saw
Jurassic Park III, I was so disappointing because after seeing the poster with the new logo, it looked like something new and different...but it was just a disappointment for me. So I just tend to see a movie for the movie itself and not the posters. But, it just works differently with everyone.
The films rating was fine, as TLD was pushing that PG, hell even AVTAK was pushing it, but this one deserved it and is a better movie for it. Also, that rating also turned off many families, as the Bond's are known as family films as well, but all modern ones have been PG-13, and still generate familes...
It's funny how all this has changed.
Edited by iBond, 11 June 2011 - 06:28 AM.