I know that when you find yourself having to design the poster for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li you have been dealt a very bad hand. But surely the result can be better than this.

The good thing about this poster is that it does show two people fighting, and that is the essence of Street Fighter (an essence that doesn’t exactly make a great movie premise, but never mind that). Of course the titular (and legendary!) Chun-Li isn’t one of those people, but I’m willing to forgive that.

But the bad is overwhelming. The metallic blue on black color scheme is horrid, for starters. And the main design idea of the poster is to fill the silhouette of the fighting men with floating heads that are, in their majority, not recognizable either to movie goers or to Street Fighters fans. Not exactly a winning concept.

Also, the tagline isn’t great, but it isn’t the worst either. However the overall image does nothing to complement it and make its meaning more profound. So it end up being just words that people will be happy to ignore.

Then again I always say that a bad poster for a bad movie can be a blessing, and I just can’t see this being anything but awful.

(Via IMPAwards)

There are a few things about this poster that confuse me.

First, the poster seems to position Land of the Lost as a pretty straight fantasy/adventure. However, both the film and the poster star Will Ferrell, who isn’t exactly known for playing it straight. So, is this a more serious turn for Will? Or is it a more comedic interpretation of the concept?

The second thing is that the poster has a very retro look, both in the contents of the image and in its style. Even the title is reminiscent of the original (and rather old) Land of the Lost. These might mean that the new film embraces it’s roots and updates the original while still maintaining it’s overall feel. But I find it hard to believe they actually went in that direction, especially considering the star.

So basically the poster is telling me this is a reasonably serious fantasy/adventure with a retro look and lots of love for the original, but my prejudices don’t really let me believe that is what the film will actually be. I hope my prejudices are wrong, because that sounds like a movie I might want o watch.

Confusions aside let me just say that I quite like the look of the poster, but the boat and its passengers feel a little out of place. They are both too real and too silly to fit in with the background.

(Via Cinematical)

100 Illustrated Horror Film Posters: Part 1, and Part 2. Some truly stunning, every one of them worth at least a quick look.

I’m especially fond of this type of poster. When I was young they fascinated me and got my imagination going like few other things. As I got older and got to see the actual films I discovered that my imagination was a lot more entertaining and scary than the real thing. But the posters are still magic to me.

And here is a quick reminder that the whole 3D horror film thing is hardly new.

26 Letters. 26 sites. 26 Posters. That is a lot of posters. And a lot of sites. Luckily IMPAwards has collected them all in one place, making things much easier for us all.

With 26 posters being released at once it will be no surprise that most of them aren’t particularly remarkable. But the effect of seeing them all one after another is pretty strong. Each poster hints at one aspect of this magical world the film will show us, and by the 26th I found myself quite intrigued by all the strange things that are apparently happening in it.

Adding that to the novelty of all these posters being shown in all these sites and I’m willing to say this marketing effort is a success.

The posters for Tyler Perry’s movies are one of this site’s obsessions. So I just have to post the latest one.

But even if I didn’t have to, I would do it anyway. Keeping with the tradition this early poster is beautiful and restrained, and feels and looks different from most of the other posters you are likely to see nowadays. Also, I’m a sucker for smoke effects.

That said, this is sort of an oddly dark poster. Tyler Perry’s brand basically means two things for me: humor and heart-warming sentimentality (and I mean that in the best way possible). This seems to lack both of those elements, and I wonder if this is a reflection of the movie’s tone or just a reflection of an over eager attempt to keep the poster clean and sophisticated.

Still, great to look at.

(Via IMPAwards and Black Voices)

IGN released a few days ago this very entertaining list written by Jay Hainsworth of what they deem to be The Top 25 Comic Book Movie Posters. Some of the longtime readers might notice that many posters from this old post make an appearance. Which probably tells you more about the scarcity of great comic book posters than it tells about mine or Jay’s taste.

They do go with different choices for number one (seen above), although it is sort of a variation on the choice I made. But I have to admit that looking back I probably agree with them.

However, you know what I really don’t like about this list? Two. Freaking. Posters. Per. Page. For a total of 13 pages. 13! I understand the urge to increase the page views, but this is just ridiculous guys.

I guess the idea of this poster is to draw attention to the 3D effect but still produce a creepy poster that feels like the poster for a serious horror movie. I like the idea, but I’m not sure the execution works all that well. The 3D aspect is much more muted than it was in the last poster, but when compared to modern horror posters I don’t think this comes out as particularly scary. the poster ends up being neither here nor there.

So, what should they do different to sell this movie? I’m not sure. I really don’t know how you sell a 3D horror movie well. I’m not even sure you can. Is this something people are really interested in? If so, who exactly? And why? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, and that makes it hard for me to think of a good marketing strategy.

If 3D does indeed become a a normal way of seeing films, and that does seem likely, we will eventually come to a better understanding of how to market these films, and we will probably develop a whole visual vocabulary from which to draw from which is relevant to this day and age. But right now, and for at least the next couple of years, I think we will see a lot of trial and error. Emphasis on the error.

This weekend I ended up watching a fair chunk of Krull, which reminded me of just how much I liked this one back when I was a child. A truly under appreciated gem of a fantasy movie if you ask me.

The posters, unfortunately, aren’t anything to write home about. Typical and uninspired eighties fair and one of a million posters for a sci-fi/fantasy movie menacingly showcasing a planet seen from space. The sheer inventiveness and wonder of the movie aren’t really captured in any of them.

But I’m feeling nostalgic enough to make me post the anyway.

(Posters via IMPAwards)

I have to admit, the Terminator’s face emerging from the destroyed remains of a city is one of the coolest poster images I have seen this year. A very good idea expertly executed in this case.

And this flash “moving” version makes the whole thing even better. I wonder how long it will take until motion posters of this kind become something we see commonly on theater lobbies?

I’m kind of surprised at how much weight the Terminator brand still carries with me, and with how good the marketing materials for this film have been. Considering the director of Salvation is the infamous McG I’m keeping my hopes down. But as it turns out I sure would love one more great Terminator film.

(Via IMPAwards)

I think the time has come for me to opine on the Hotel for Dogs poster campaign. And I have to say, it has been heavy on the dogs, not so much on the hotel part until this last one.

Honestly, the movie is about dogs doing funny things (or at least wearing funny things, which is really the same thing). So they have a bunch of posters of dogs doing funny things. Obvious, but that doesn’t make it any less right. Likewise, the poster for Beverly Hills Chihuahua was probably one of the best posters we had this year in terms of selling the movie to the target audience. It was an easy sell, for sure, but that’s not the fault of the poster designers who made the best of it.

(Via IMPAwards)