"Where is Ant-Man?" Does the question sell Marvel's 20th cinematographic film?



[ad_1]

With 19 films already published in Marvel's Cinematic Universe, the studio relies on the familiarity of the public to market its latest suite, Ant-Man and the Wasp which will dominate the decor of the 4th of July celebrations.

The original Ant-Man reached the theaters in the summer of 2015, with $ 519 million worldwide, and Paul Rudd's superhero played a small role (actually big when you think about it) in 2016 Captain America: Civil War . Evangeline Lilly, a supporting character in the first film, played an expanded role this time around, as shown in the title, taking on a heroic mantle.

The story involves the search by Hope van Dyne (Lilly) and his father Hank (Michael Douglas) for his mother and wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), disappeared decades ago in the "Quantum Realm" Microscopic. At the same time, they are trying to stop the threat of Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a villain who has his own relationship with the kingdom.

The follow-up before the release foresees that the film will open between 75 and 85 million dollars this weekend. The campaign mounted by Marvel Studios sought to sell the film as a fun hug, a stark contrast to the heavy and very serious push of Avengers: Infinity War a few months ago. Throughout the campaign, the studio sought to balance the connections of this film and the separations of this previous film.

Posters

The teaser poster was published in January, just as the hype for Infinity War and Black Panther was in full swing, an attempt to capitalize on this interest. That's exactly what you expect from him, a large field of white with two little figures barely visible in the middle.

The second poster arrived in April and enlarges everyone in life size in a typical Marvel film design, everyone looks in different directions while the heroes stand in the middle of the set. He even uses the same vanity as the posters Iron Man putting the unmasked main characters in one place while they also appear with helmets in the background at the top of the poster . John-Kamen appears here as The Ghost and Pfeiffer makes his first appearance in the campaign.

For exclusive distributor / ticketing posters, general visual themes were respected with variations in the way this design was executed. The Dolby Cinema poster centers everyone around Lang's image, all the characters standing out against a background of nest of bees. The Real 3D poster used the same slash with the characters in the same basic pose as the one seen on the tea leaf.

The biggest deviation from this visual theme came from the Fandango exclusive, in which Scott and Hope marched heroically towards the camera, surrounded by popcorn on a carpet. Finally, two IMAX posters were released, one showing Ant-Man encouraging her to "experiment a little bigger" with a narrowed Hope picture and Scott enlarging chasing a pickup truck in a San Francisco street. The other showed Wasp floating in front of a burst of light that wants the audience to experience the movie "to the fullest".

A series of character posters was released in June, after Infinity War had died down a bit. Each offers a better overview of the main cast, including our first glimpse of Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne. The same color line on the white backdrop is used and everyone has one or both narrowed Scott and Hope flying around the title processing.

The Trailers

In January, in conjunction with the poster, the first trailer (14.4 million views on YouTube) came out. At first we immediately felt that Hope was going to play an important role here, Scott asking if she would have helped or not the events of 1945-19003 [Guerre civile] when he asked for it. From there, we learn that Scott's actions forced Henry and Hope to flee, which forced him to shrink his office as part of the leak. There is a lot of action like The Wasp especially on nameless villains. In the end, Scott asks Henry all there is cool tech in his suit and he is shocked by the answer he gets as to why he is not included in his.

million views on YouTube), which begins with Scott's daughter asking him to be Ant-Man. It turns out that Hank Pym opened up the quantum realm and inadvertently unleashed a villain known as The Ghost, with significant powers and a desire for dominance. Scott and Hope have to work together in their superheroes to get her out and foil her plans, which gives us the opportunity to see a lot of action sequences that change their size. With a little comical relief from Pena en route, the trailer ends by introducing us to Bill Foster, Hank's former partner and a size changer himself in the day.

Advertisement

TV commercials like this one began to work late May, while the buzz of the Avengers was still hot, which played the role of Ghost in the conduct of the show. history. he sometimes claims to be, much to the dismay of the Pyms. Others like this have just sold the film as a good time in theaters and one that reminded people that Scott is an Avenger, after all.

Finally the TV campaign ended up including spots like this one. The movie was part of the same cinematic universe as Avengers: Infinity War but with a much less serious tone. This kind of obvious connection seems to be exactly what the Marvel Studios were trying to avoid as a result of so many questions asked about the Timeline and where Ant-Man and Wasp are during this huge battle.

In March, Marvel announced a book "Prelude" which basically traces the history of the first film to help ensure that everyone is in tune before the second film.

There were also some promotional partner companies who also enjoyed themselves.

► Hyundai, which aired co-branded television commercials with video footage to promote its Veloster model after taking the car, featured in the film, to auto shows across the country earlier this year. He also staged a waterfall in Los Angeles where he placed small cars in local comic book stores, whose locations were teased on social media, which doubled as screening took place. The car appeared later at the premiere of the film.

► Synchrony, who aired online advertisements using the main characters and the slogan "Save with a bank that has your money back", reproduces the idea of ​​partnership and team work that prevailed throughout the campaign. There was also an exclusive online cartoon available on the bank's website.

► Dell, who took the film costumes at CES last January and promotes his technology not only on the screen, but also in film making. good. He even sponsored his own featurette behind the scenes by exhibiting some of this technology and launched a co-branded commercial on these same points.

Advertisement

San Diego Comic-Con 2017 was a big party coming up. Comic-Con was the place where Marvel announced that Michelle Pfeiffer would play Janet Van Dyne and that Laurence Fishburne would play Bill Foster, would show very raw pictures and would offer promotional art.

Almost Immediately After ] Infinity War was released in late April, Marvel released a short video with the stars of this movie asking the same question – and providing ironic answers to – many in the audience were, namely "Where were Ant- The man and the wasp?" during the events of this story.

In addition to some of the TV spots mentioned above, the connection between the two films, as well as how this one plays in the next and still untitled Avengers 4 were covered by Kevin Feige , executive producer of Marvel Studios, in a featurette published a few weeks before the release of the film. In this video, Feige also acknowledges that, with Wasp finally, all the characters from the first issue of "The Avengers" from 1963 are finally on the screen.

Other clips and featurettes offered additional backstage footage of the film and introductions to the story and characters. The scale and the way it was performed with and without special effects was a big part of the promotion. This included a demonstration of the possible forced perspective in an Ames room, making Rudd and Douglas appear larger or smaller depending on where they were and a glimpse of how they handled all of them. Size changes in the car chase are part of the trailers and advertising.

An exclusive video of IMAX shows that Rudd says that the mbadive size of these screens will make everyone feel poles apart.

Overall

In addition to the Comic-Con of San Diego 2017, Disney and Marvel Studios baduredly presented Ant-Man and The Wasp during from last April's CinemaCon, distributing and exhibiting executives and makers are watching the trailer that was released publicly a few weeks later.

The studio also promoted the film overseas by organizing its very first fan event in Taiwan. and Lilly has attracted the attention and interest of moviegoers.

The tone of marketing evolved from January, starting quite cheerful and fun and becoming more and more serious as the release drew closer. There is still a lot of laughs – a lot of them coming from clips and videos of the costar Michael Pena in the role of Luis – but the more he was trying to draw lines connecting this movie and the more he became sober of the movie. ;mind.

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer with 15 years of experience in the social media and content marketing industry.

[ad_2]
Source link