In order for the box office to return to pre-pandemic levels, experts emphasize the importance of studios and exhibitors offering moviegoers a wide variety of choices. When they hit, the tentpoles bring in large crowds and establish a foundation for the business. But when they do, it’s equally important to give those occasional customers a reason to return to enjoy the next tier of off-beat or specialty titles.
The good news is that the release calendar for the next two years appears to be well-stocked with new movies. But that’s only half the battle. Theatres are now forced to compete with the option for movie watchers to opt for the “convenience” of watching the movie at home when it comes out on streaming services. Moreover, the window when a movie is only playing in theatres is becoming shorter, as few as 17 days for some titles.
This article from the Los Angeles Times celebrates examples of marketing campaigns by film distributors that succeeded in making it a must-see experience to watch their movie in theatres, as soon as it came out. In all cases, they narrowed in on a specific demographic and offered a hook to make it exciting.
Neon built up the creep factor for its original horror movie LONGLEGS by keeping the face of its star Nicholas Cage partially hidden in its movie poster and images from the movie.
Neon’s head of marketing Christian Parkes explains that the goal of his movie’s campaigns is to “make [viewers] feel like you’re missing out on an important conversation if you’re not there opening weekend.” With ANORA, the message emphasized the filmmaker by using the tagline “A love story from Sean Baker” and targeting a young cinephile audience.
Focus Features began with a more traditional campaign for its Catholic drama CONCLAVE, targeting an older art-house demographic and emphasizing the cast of well-known actors including Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini.
But as the ball got rolling, Focus re-posted and amplified memes that some GenZ and GenX audiences were posting on social media. An example of one of their reposts was “Conclave is kind of hard for me to watch because this is almost exactly my experience with being elected president of my high school’s drama club. – @MatthewKBegbie.”