More important than the stars!

In this age where most mainstream hollywood movies' fate is decided by the first 3 days' box-office collections, it is increasingly becoming clear that the publicity machinery is almost as important for a movie as the movie's director. What's more, as the title suggests, it is more important than the actors in many cases. A Russell Crowe can't carry a good movie like Cinderella Man to box-office success simply because the studio didn't bother to create the requisite buzz about the movie (so much so that some of my friends thought I was recommending a chick-flick to them when I was talking about Cinderella Man!) whereas Fantastic Four grosses 150 million dollars without having any established stars purely because its publicity fooled people into thinking that it is one of the big summer movies that they should not miss!

So, its not just the director but the person who cuts the teasers and the trailers for the movie who are the major influences behind most big movies. (Which makes my example of Cinderella Man slightly inconsistent. Its first trailer was very promising as I had posted long ago. I guess they just forgot to show the trailer anywhere!) If all this is true, then I guess Warner Bros can rest assured that Harry Potter - 4 has a great chance of being a blockbuster. Its teaser was ok-ish but the latest trailer is actually pretty exciting. I still think Cho Chang could've been better looking and the dragons and the merpeople could've been better visualized but overall its a pretty good trailer. That it matters little for movies like Star Wars and Harry Potter that have a huge built-in audience is another matter though. Still, I think little things like this can make the difference between a 250-million dollar blockbuster and a 350-million dollar monster-hit. Have a look at the trailer here..

Another post about other upcoming movies coming soon...