There Is More Than One Way To Cook A Movie
Promoting a movie is sorta like cooking: you have your ingredients, and your equipment, and your guests, but you might use different recipes on different occasions. Let’s look through the prism of cooking at some recent movie’s promotional recipes.
TITLE | TOTAL VIEWS | HIGHEST DAY | AVERAGE DAY | WEEK -6 | TRAILER WEEKS |
CARRIE | 662,000 | 20,793 | 1,982 | 1,297 | 46 |
GRAVITY | 448,000 | 10,553 | 3,446 | 16,570 | 13 |
ESCAPE PLAN | 240,000 | 14,371 | 1,681 | 15,577 | 9 |
MACHETE KILLS | 216,000 | 11,662 | 1,675 | 12,114 | 16 |
THE COUNSELOR | 148,000 | 6,429 | 1,106 | 17,008 | 8 |
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Clearly the folks behind CARRIE at Sony Pictures think the best way to promote a scary movie is with a slow roasting just like back in the middle ages. It is kind of like cooking barbeque…. the slower the better as long as the fire doesn’t go out. They started promotion a year in advance. |
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The grill masters at Summit Entertainment (ESCAPE PLAN) and at Fox (THE COUNSELOR) believe in high heat for just a few minutes….burnt on the outside but still bleeding in the middle. They didn’t start promotion until July. |
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The chef’s at Warner Bros. (GRAVITY) and Open Road (MACHETE KILLS) think there is a middle way. Keep things hot…but not too hot and not for too long. |
So, several movies with several marketing recipes, and different appetites from the guests at the box office.