What follows is an actual conversation overheard this evening at Arsenal tube station in North London, as a (slightly inebriated) twentysomething couple stared idly at this international one-sheet for “Funny People.” I was so excited to hear strangers giving voice to my own musings that I began scribbling down a sneaky transcription. (Don’t judge me.)
“There’s a new Adam Sandler film? Why haven’t I heard of it?”
“Dunno. But he just had one out, didn’t he? Isn’t this that one?”
(shrug) “No, look, this one’s by that ‘Knocked Up’ bloke.”
“Oh, I quite liked that one, actually. Yeah, that’s that fat guy from it on the left.”
“Seth Rogen? That’s not him, is it? Oh yeah, you’re right. There’s his name.”
“I don’t know who half these people are. The blonde girl … is she someone famous?”
“Dunno. Looks like Cameron Diaz, but her name’s not on it, so I suppose it’s not.”
“You sozzled twat, she looks nothing like Cameron Diaz. I look more like Cameron Diaz than that.”
“Well, who the fuck is it, then?”
“I don’t know.”
(Conversation drifts unnavigably to matters of swine flu and Take That before returning to the poster.)
“So what’s this film about then?”
“Are we still talking about that?”
“I want to know. I’ve been looking at this ad since we got here. I demand to know what I’m looking at.”
“Funny people, apparently.”
“Thanks for that.”
“And desperate people, and lucky people, and — ”
“Shut up.”
“Except Seth Rogen. Look, he’s the only one without a label. They don’t know what he is.”
“Fat people.”
“Not anymore. Look at him, actually.”
From there on, the conversation drifted to diets and the government’s five-a-day recommendations. Thus concluded the poster discussion.
If there is a more eerily on-point demonstration of everything Universal have got wrong in marketing this film, I don’t know what it is. Obviously, multiple factors are to blame for the film’s commercial belly-flop Stateside, but bland, completely inscrutable advertising like this hasn’t helped matters at all.
You’d think they might have learned their lesson after taking significant flak for the (even duller, even vaguer) U.S. poster, but the powers that be still seem utterly perplexed as to how to sell this film. This one arguably improves on its American counterpart by at least realizing that Eric Bana and Jonah Hill are bigger draws than Leslie Mann, but the extra wording just confuses the picture.
Who are these people? What is the film about? And why should people pay to find out? The oblique, enigmatic approach may work for the arthouse crowd lining up for the new Coen Brothers oddity, but for a mainstream summer comedy (whatever its dramatic aspirations), it simply doesn’t fly. Whatever the film’s own failings, heads should roll.
Comments
15 responses to “Getting it wrong on both sides of the pond”
Brilliant.
This sadly deserved to flop (loved everyone involved, especially Apatow) but the movie just doesnt work, on any level. Its a shame, Universal is having a fox summer it would appear, time for people to start losing their jobs
Hahah, that’s amazing.
I had a not-so-similar incident when I was at my local cinema. This couple that looked about 18 or 19 years old saw the poster for “Coco Avant Chanel” and the girl asked “why is the poster in French?”
!
Hey Kris and Guy did you hear the Inception trailer will premiere in front of inglorious basterds???
Those people sound like people I would never go to a movie with.
Cute.
I have no idea what to think about the film based on that poster, and I have seen it!
Surely there is only so much you can convey about a film using a poster?
Yeh – it’s crap but I don’t think I could come up with anything better.
There’s no way anyone in the 21st century uses the word ‘sozzled’!
Yeah, that caught my ear too. Great word, though.
Guy, are you secretly a follower of the lost art of stenography? How on earth did you scribble down an entire conversation between two strangers — without them noticing, I might add. You must have looked like Leslie Howard in “Pygmalion”.
Haha, I have a weird shorthand. And it’s slightly abbreviated.
Posters were irrelevant, because the title has always been a turnoff for me. It’s like they’re guaranteeing laughter. Reminds me of 2008’s SMART PEOPLE; I see Sarah Jessica Parker on the poster and my first thought is “false advertising.”
They could not have come up with a blander (more bland?) poster. I was surprised there wasn’t a poster similar to the “40 Year Old Virgin” one (as they did for “Knocked Up”). http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/05/15/the-rocker-teaser-poster-borrows-from-judd-apatow/
Could have served as a great teaser poster clearly announcing the coming of a new Apatow movie. It would have been much better than the one they released where Seth Rogan looks so awkward. And why not a poster with a stand-up comic theme? They didn’t have to rip off “Lenny” but the imagery could have been used to better highlight the dramatic aspect of the movie. Certainly, the marketing folks could have come up with something better than they did.
I think that poster is pretty fantastic (not so much the US poster), but I’m not a brit on a train and am already camped out for A Serious Man, so you may have a point.