Category Archives: Poster Roundup
Poster Round-up – Tower Heist, Ides of March, Red State, Tyrannosaur and more
Not too many posters in the second half of this week but with the ones we have there are some striking images aaannnddd…dancing penguins. All release dates are for the UK.
Tower Heist
It’s been about four years since we last saw Brett Ratner directed film and some (I assume) have championed his absence. I wouldn’t blame him for the disappointment that was X-Men: The Last Stand (he was a factor, out of several) but he has made some genuinely good and funny films. That being said I’m not sure what I think about Tower Heist, I didn’t laugh once during the trailer and looks as if its playing it very broad and safe (not too surprising for a film by Ratner). Anyway it’s nice seeing Eddie Murphy back in a film.
Release date: 4th November
Melancholia
Remember, he’s not a nazi but Lars Von Trier can direct some beguiling (and gross) films when he’s not opening his mouth. Melancholia looks like it’s going to be more of the former than the latter.
Release date: 30 September
Red State
Another director who’s courted controversy this year, Kevin Smith has been antagonising just about everyone since his film premiered at Sundance earlier this year. Whether that behaviour was warranted or not, he’s certainly drummed up interest in Red State.
Release date: 30 September
Happy Feet 2 in 3D
I liked George Miller’s Happy Feet when it came out in 2008. It was cute, fun and had a message (although you could argue about how heavy-handed its implementation was). I expect more of the same with the sequel. Just in 3D.
Release Date: 2nd December
Ides of March
I haven’t watched the trailer but considering the talent involved I don’t think it would be too hard to imagine this film as early front-runner comes awards’ season. Not enamoured with the poster, can’t stop thinking of John Woo’s Face Off when I look at it.
Release Date: 28th October
Tyrannosaur
Not much to say about this, I do know that it screened earlier this week (unfortunately I couldn’t go) but the buzz on this film is very good. The synopsis says it’s about “A woman looks for a way out of her abusive relationship”. Directed by Paddy Considine, I believe this is his first feature film.
Release Date: 14th October
Poster Round-up – The Avengers, Haywire, The Amazing Spider-Man and more
Lots and lots of posters, most of them Marvel related, let’s get to it…
First up is the series of Avengers posters that Marvel released during Comic-Con. What I like about these posters is that (for the main characters at least), it’s a compilation of the most important moments that have taken place in the respective Marvel films. I also like the painterly feel to them, the posters were created by Ryan Meinerding and Charlie Wen.
And here’s the banner incorporating all the characters, click on it to expand.
Haywire
The Muppets – Captain America spoof
Our Idiot Brother
The Amazing Spider-Man
Immortals
A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
Poster Round-up – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Captain America, Moneyball, Dream House and more
Poster overload, first up is…
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6′s echelons.
Moneyball
The story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Hunger Games
A young girl joins a survival contest in order to save her community in a dystopian future.
In Time
In the future people stop aging at 25 and must work to buy themselves more time, but when a young man finds himself with more time than he can imagine he must run from the corrupt police force to save his life.
Dream House
Soon after moving into their seemingly idyllic new home, a family learns of a brutal crime committed against former residents of the dwelling.
The Raven
A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer’s stories.
Contagion
An action-thriller centered on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak.
Captain America -Olly Moss
After being deemed unfit for military service, Steve Rogers volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into Captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending America’s ideals.
Poster Roundup – Immortals, TF3, The Guard, Crazy Stupid Love and more
Another week and tons of posters to get through!
beginning with Immortals directed by Tarsem Singh (The Fall and the upcoming Snow White film with Julia Roberts), comes another batch of character posters (four in total). After the teaser trailer was received somewhat negatively (arguments over style and question marks over the originality of the content), Warner Bros has set about redressing those concerns by distracting us with some gorgeous one sheets. They’re not an indication of whether the film will be any good, but if the posters are accurate representation of the film’s style, it will certainly look very purdy. Unlike the first batch these character posters focus more on the human element of the film.
Immortals follows Henry Cavill’s (The Tudors, upcoming Man of Steel) Theseus, a peasant chosen by Zeus to battle against a new evil that threatens the land. Mad with power, King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) has declared war against humanity. Amassing a bloodthirsty army of soldiers, Hyperion has scorched Greece in search of the legendary Epirus Bow, a weapon forged in the heavens by Ares. In the king’s hands, the bow would rain destruction upon mankind and annihilate the Gods. But ancient law dictates the Gods must not intervene in man’s conflict. They remain powerless to stop Hyperion until Theseus comes forth as their only hope.
I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Optimus Prime, sword, destruction. Can you guess which film it is? I can’t say that I’m anticipating Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I’m vaguely interested in how Michael Bay will handle the 3D but we’re three films into this franchise and I’ve found it not to my liking. That being said I’ll probably go and see this, the mere hint of redemption after Revenge of the Fallen is pulling me in. There must be something wrong with me.
Next up is a smaller film. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh (Brother of Martin McDonagh who wrote and directed the brilliant In Bruges), comes The Guard. Starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, the former as an unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality who’s teamed up with an uptight FBI agent (Cheadle) to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring. Promising the same kind of black humour that In Bruges was sprinkled with, for me this film is a must see. The Guard is released August 19th in the UK.
It doesn’t hit our shores until sometime in September (2nd September to be exact) but Crazy Stupid Love is coming out in the US on the 29th July. Apparently this film is very good according to those who have seen it but this poster seems to place strictly with the raunchy comedy genre which probably does it a disservice. And look at those faces lining the bottom of the poster, each character looks like they’ve been airbrushed to the point where I can’t even tell if Steve Carell is real or just a coloured in photo-fit.
When I first heard about The Devil’s Double I thought it was a horror film which completely disinterested me. Then I did some research (Total Film magazine and IMDB!) and found out it’s about Dominic Cooper’s Latif Yahia, a man who was forced to become the double of Saddam Hussein’s sadistic son, Uday. My interest peaked only to be reminded that the buzz on this film is so-so. Directed by Lee Tamohori (director of the abysmal Die Another Day) the film comes out in the UK on the 12th August.
Next up is Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens. Bond flanked by Indiana Jones. Nuff said. Uk release date is August 19th.
I posted the original set of posters some time ago, along with a trailer and now we have another poster for Gavin O’ Connor’s (Pride and Glory) Warrior. It was shown at the film exhibitor’s festival in the US and garnered some good reviews. Starring Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, expect to see this one in cinemas on the 23 September. If you like staring at ripped bodies you will definitely like this poster.
It’s not easy being green. It really isn’t.
Finally the poster for the Footloose remake. Having never seen the 1984 original with Kevin Bacon I can’t say that I even raised an eyebrow looking at this poster. Who cares?
Poster Roundup – Straw Dogs, Harry Potter and John Carter
The week’s not over but posters have been coming in at least one a day. Featured posters are for the Straw Dogs remake, Harry Potter (which I doubt will be the final posters, consdiering how many they’ve been doing over the last few weeks) and John Carter, which isn’t on my cinematic radar yet.
Starting with Straw Dogs, it’s a film directed by Rod Lurie (2008′s Nothing But the Truth starring Kate Beckinsale) and co written by Lurie and David Zelag Goodman. The latter name I’ve never heard of and a quick search in IMDb shows why. The last script he wrote was in 2003 and he was a more prolific writer in the Sixties and Seventies, writing Logan’s Run and, funnily enough, the original Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman in the role now being played by James Marsden. The film’s a remake and so is the poster but will the film as good (or as controversial) as the 1971 film? UK audiences will find out the 28th October.
Warner Bros must have told their marketing department they were having some sort of firesale as they have dumped a huge amount of posters online for the last film in the Harry Potter series, The Deathly Hallows Part 2. Excited by these posters? Warner Bros certainly want you to be.
Lastly it’s the John Carter poster and along with the name it’s a rather minimilist approach to poster design (I feel). With just Taylor Kitsch’s face and, with what I’m assuming will be the John Carter insignia, it’s a little quiet and not the big explosive reveal that perhaps we were expecting from Disney. It certainly gives no indication of what the film will be like or who else is in it. Then again it’s a teaser poster but exactly what it’s teasing I’m not sure of. Having never read the Burrough’s novels, I have no idea what to expect and right now this project feels about as alien to me as any of the aliens Carter will face. I expected just a little more but this offers very little to those unitiated in the world Burrough’s created.
Directed by Andrew Stanton (Wall-e) and starring Willem Dafoe, Lyn Collins, Mark Strong, James Purefoy, Thomas Haden Church, Dominic West, Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds, it has a more than decent cast. John Carter is out on 9th of March in the UK and not the confusing US date on the poster which is the same date as the UK, just formatted differently (3.9.12)
Poster Roundup – Green Lantern,Transformers,Melancholia, Sleeping Beauty & At Stranger Tides
Quite a few posters have been released this week and all of them are pertaining to films arriving in the next few months or so.
Starting with Green Lantern, it’s a film that’s come under some criticism whether its for its visuals, tone or the general quality of the marketing materials that have been put out. Personally I’m intrigued as I have been since the film was announced although I am put of by the mythology of it. It definitely is something that we haven’t seen in the superhero realm and as I’ve said in previous posts on the Green Lantern I’m hoping that Goldeneye/Zorro Martin Campbell turns up. If not then the marriage between the more comedy elements and what looks like being huge sci-fi elements may not fit. Still as the film comes ever closer I’m willing to give it a chance especially as I’m reading some Green Lantern comics and trying to get a sense of this universe. The first poster is from Yahoo Movies.
And here is the banner released by MTV movies featuring the Green Lantern Corp. I bet you can’t guess them all (I certainly can’t). Click to enlarge or view separately.
With this poster we have Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia and like the trailer I’m struggling to find the words to describe it. Its clean and sparse but it gives me even less information than the trailer did. It certainly looks striking enough and there’s a simplicity to it even if the poster doesn’t scream ‘end of the world’. It looks more like an invitation.
From one film with arthouse aspirations to another. Sleeping Beauty, by first time director Julia Leigh (who wrote the screenplay) and backed up with Jane Campion Presents (I’m not sure how much weight her name will give the film beyond the arthouse crowd) it looks like the rarest of things in cinema at the moment – a film with female talent both in front of and behind the camera. I posted the first trailer a few weeks ago and its followed up by this poster which is both revealing and suggestive. Its not often you see films put sexuality front and centre, especially when its about a woman who enters the world of prostitution.
Back to the blockbusters we have Transformers and Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides (x2). Rather standard posters these ones although Shia does look a little confused and dishevelled (not to mention dirty). Pirates also showcases the “attributes” of double barrelled actress Astrid Berges-Frisbey (who has both Spanish and French heritage). I can’t say I’m too interested in these films but I’m always willing to give them a chance although they both really have to redeem themselves after their rather wasteful efforts last time.
Poster Roundup: Immortals
Hmm, I have a feeling a teaser trailer is not to far away from our screens as the marketing seems to have been bumped up a notch on Tarsem Singh’s Immortals. Five posters have been released courtesy of Fandango and while they seem to have a distinct look (the burnished gold look that has been commonplace on historical epics since Gladiator, have a look here, here and here) you cannot escape the “from the producers of 300″. I guess that Universal (the studio releasing it) will hope that lightning strikes twice/Gods are on their side etcetera, etc but I’m not so sure that going after the 300 crowd (or associating yourselves with them) will work, especially when you take into account Tarsem’s previous films The Fall and The Cell. I myself am hoping for more Gladiator and less Clash of the Titans.
Maybe he has managed to put his own stamp on the historical action genre? Until we see a trailer we won’t know but we have these posters in the meantime.
Synopsis: Eons after the Gods won their mythic struggle against the Titans, a new evil threatens the land. Mad with power, King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) has declared war against humanity. Amassing a bloodthirsty army of soldiers disfigured by his own hand, Hyperion has scorched Greece in search of the legendary Epirus Bow, a weapon of unimaginable power forged in the heavens by Ares. Only he who possesses this bow can unleash the Titans, who have been imprisoned deep within the walls of Mount Tartaros since the dawn of time and thirst for revenge. In the king’s hands, the bow would rain destruction upon mankind and annihilate the Gods. But ancient law dictates the Gods must not intervene in man’s conflict. They remain powerless to stop Hyperion…until a peasant named Theseus (Henry Cavill) comes forth as their only hope. Secretly chosen by Zeus, Theseus must save his people from Hyperion and his horde.
Immortals is released in the UK on November the 11th.
Poster Roundup: Tree of Life, The Hangover: Part II and Thor
Not much to be said here, three new posters, one for Terence Malick’s Tree of Life (which in other news will be debuting in the UK on the 4th May), Todd Philip’s comedy sequel to the uber-hit The Hangover and another poster for Thor, this advertising the IMAX aspect (the film was not shot in IMAX as far as I know and like many films will be upconverted to take advantage of the bigger screen).
