Hide The Ball, etc.
Alonso Duralde‘s 12.28 Movieline piece says that Anton Corbijn‘s The American was “mismarketed.” That implies error when this was a simple case of Focus Features misrepresenting The American to earn decent coin before the word got out that it’s an austere art-house film with almost no action. They lied and made $16,662,333 the first five days. If they’d told the truth they would have made a lot less. Simple.
What’s funny is that there is almost zero action in the trailer either. There’s a lot of quick cuts of George sitting in coffee shops, diners, looking out the window, standing still talking to a priest, walking through allyways and the like, but there is almost no action, per say. I get that you have the FEELING of something happening, but it’s not in the trailer, not really. I’m sorry, but I don’t count a single shot of a guy sliding on a motorcycle under a bus as an action scene. I do love the way they quick cut Clooney assembling the gun. That made me smile. I say good for them. They got people to go and see a film they most likely wouldn’t have otherwise.
It was purposeful mismarketing. It’s really the only way they could have made an ad campaign to get people in the theaters.
Terrible title didn’t help matters.
Re The Thing’s comment:
Noticing that Bob and Harvey put out a poster which will make unknowing potential audiences think that THE COMPANY MEN is a laid-off-employees-strike-back caper film.
One of the best films of the year (and a pretty goddamn strong one, at that), IMHO.
I couldn’t really care less about how it was marketed, its B.O. total, etc.
I mean, yeah, I’d prefer it made a profit, of course…but that was never really going to happen, regardless. The Thing nailed it in comment #2.
I’m not sure what people expected from The American that they probably didn’t already get from The Good German or Syriana. I’d say the only real difference between those three is the inclusion of R-rated sex scenes.
yes but, to be fair, you’re a total idiot without a single reputable opinion, about film or anything else.
They should have done the same thing for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Put all the shooting into the trailer. Brad Pitt in a Jesse James movie would’ve opened to more than $15mil.
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Critics and audiences passionately hated The American. I loved it – it is still one of my favorite films of the year. While people argue about whether or not Winter’s Bone will beat out 127 Hours in the BP 10, I still hold out hope that The American slips in there somehow.
Good point on Jesse James.
I just watched it on DVD and it was one of those movies that is very watchable, but once it ended, it vanished like Keyser Soze. It felt like it was made strictly for overseas box-office. Very little dialogue, easy to dub if they wanted to. Lots of walking, thinking, assembling weapons, pondering, there’s a hooker, pausing, brooding, ominous chords letting you know one of these people is going to try to kill another one of these people.
And then *poof* it’s gone.
They did the very same thing with GRAN TORINO to the tune of $150 million.
It’s not lying, it’s “marketing”, and sales jobs always have a touch (if not a huge steaming pile) of B.S. associated with them. It’s just business, it’s not personal, and everyone in America accepts this by now. And if you’re not a savvy consumer, you’ve probably lost all your money long ago anyway.
It amazes me how clever the business of movie trailers has gotten in the past decade or so. I used to pride myself on being able to tell from them (+ the director) if I would like a movie or not. It takes some serious skill to be able to fool a nation of people raised their whole lives under the creative and sophisticated marketing techniques of Madison Avenue. We can see through obvious editing tricks, where an unfunny comedy will show the only two good jokes in the film, or a low-budget action film just shows a bunch of quick edits. But they have gotten really good. This trailer, for instance: it doesn’t seem likes it’s trying to hide anything, but somehow the mind convinces itself from the clues presented (including the presence of George Clooney, who we know CAN do action), “ah, this is a smart action film”.
I enjoyed this film for many reasons – George’s last scene was silently terrific and the scene where he’s “embracing” his gun spoke the words he didn’t say. It’s so depressing to realize the masses do not appreciate this kind of film and that was reflected in our post viewing discussion group led by the local film critic…..Most of them said the inevitable: “nothing happens” – sigh.
I liked The American a lot, and quite a few critics liked it.
K. Bowen:
The American sits at 65, in critical purgatory, on rottentomatoes, and only rates 38 percent “like” from the audience…the movie was not championed by any major critics that I can recall, and just look at the year end critics and “best of” awards and lists – nada.
It is in my top 5 for the year. The lack of appreciation from fans, critics, and the guilds is troubling.