With a book cover I can grab the book and read the flap to get an idea. This poster is all I have to go off of. Furthermore, I do tend to trust my instincts with both book covers and movie posters. If someone doesn’t put the effort into them, arguably the simplest thing to put effort into in the grand scheme, what else did they cut corners on? We don’t live in an age where there is some entertainment desert and we go to the movies just because that’s the thing to do on a Saturday with your best girl. I can just not watch this, ever, and I won’t really miss it. The poster’s job is to make me want to watch this, and it doesn’t. Maybe some people are intrigued, and in that case, it’s doing it’s job, but I’m likely pretty close to the target audience for this kind of movie, and it isn’t landing with me.
An example that comes to mind immediately is the poster for One Battle After Another. Ostensibly a movie that I should have been STOKED about. That poster was fucking TRASH, though. One of the worst in a very long time. I kept hearing about the movie, though, and from people I trust, so I watched it. Turns out, I didn’t like the movie. It cut corners on plot and character development the same way the poster cut corners on effective advertising.
With a book cover I can grab the book and read the flap to get an idea. This poster is all I have to go off of. Furthermore, I do tend to trust my instincts with both book covers and movie posters. If someone doesn’t put the effort into them, arguably the simplest thing to put effort into in the grand scheme, what else did they cut corners on? We don’t live in an age where there is some entertainment desert and we go to the movies just because that’s the thing to do on a Saturday with your best girl. I can just not watch this, ever, and I won’t really miss it. The poster’s job is to make me want to watch this, and it doesn’t. Maybe some people are intrigued, and in that case, it’s doing it’s job, but I’m likely pretty close to the target audience for this kind of movie, and it isn’t landing with me.
An example that comes to mind immediately is the poster for One Battle After Another. Ostensibly a movie that I should have been STOKED about. That poster was fucking TRASH, though. One of the worst in a very long time. I kept hearing about the movie, though, and from people I trust, so I watched it. Turns out, I didn’t like the movie. It cut corners on plot and character development the same way the poster cut corners on effective advertising.