The film industry is full of massive undertakings that can take years if not decades of development in some cases to come to fruition. Obviously, the quality of a movie is hopefully able to speak for itself, but there are plenty of occasions where great movies fail simply because no one was aware of them. Of course, the inverse is also true where there are supremely disappointing or average movies that become major blockbusters due to how they are marketed towards audiences.
Marketing and promotion for film sometimes takes a straightforward approach, but film is full of such creative and unique entities that it’s not surprising for the advertising to attempt to reflect that. However, ambitious approaches towards marketing aren’t always the best way for a movie to get attention. Or sometimes an idea that seems excellent in the planning stage can be a disaster once it’s actually implemented.
15 Best: Independence Day Fakes An Alien Invasion
Independence Day's ambitious marketing strategy here definitely owes a lot to Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" stunt, but it's impressive that they could conjure something similar in the 1990s. Independence Day created a fake thirty-minute news broadcast that soon gets interrupted by an alien invasion, which uses footage from the movie. As crazy as it sounds, the idea actually caused a panic in some audiences.
14 Best: Office Space Trapped A Man Inside A Cubicle For A Week
Office Space is a brilliant comedy and one of Mike Judge's first big efforts. The movie is all about the soul-crushing nature of repetitive office work and so to capitalize on that, the film trapped a man inside of a cube for a whole week while he was forced to answer phone calls and file reports, as if he's in an office, according to MTV. The stunt made major waves and even saw people like Howard Stern trying to lend the person support.
13 Worst: Cool World Puts Its Star On The Hollywood Sign
Cool World is a cult film that was a hybrid between live-action and animation that featured an outrageous stunt which caused major backlash against the movie. The Hollywood Reporter mentions that a giant 40-foot tall model of the film's central animated character, Holli Would, was set on top of the D in the Hollywood sign. It was a drastic effort that got a lot of attention by messing around with a landmark.
12 Best: The Blair Witch Project Claimed To Be Real Footage
The stunt around the Blair Witch Project is exactly why the film was so successful in the first place. The toned down, found footage nature of the film truly convinced some people that this movie was actually made by real people who had gone missing. This is how the movie was pushed and it couldn't have worked better for the film.
11 Best: Fake Birth Announcements Were Released For Dracula's Daughter
Dracula's Daughter is an old Joe Weil film that came out when movie monsters were still on the rise. In an ambitious effort to push the upcoming film, the studio put out birth announcements in newspaper that welcomed Dracula's baby daughter in the world. Additionally, a woman was hired to pretend to be comatose from a supernatural force and then brought back to her senses before the premiere of the film, reports Vulture.
10 Worst: House Of Wax Pushed Audiences To "See Paris Die"
House of Wax is actually a very well made horror film that's found wider appreciation in recent years. Paris Hilton is in the movie and that's all that some people can focus on. However, WB took advantage of this in the marketing and took up a whole "See Paris Die" advertising campaign, complete with t-shirts. It was a success, but feels especially evil and nihilistic.
9 Best: Joaquin Phoenix Did A Two-Year Performance Piece For I'm Still Here
Joaquin Phoenix is an incredibly talented actor who's proven himself to be extremely dedicated to his craft in numerous occasions. I'm Still Here, a mockumentary of sorts, is one of the actor's most controversial and misunderstood pieces. Leading up to the movie, Phoenix exhibited extremely unusual behavior, claiming he had given up acting and taken up a career in rap music. He even infamously appeared on an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman in this surreal character, which confounded many before it was revealed to be promotion for the upcoming movie.
8 Worst: The Ten Commandments Got Biblical In A Big Way
Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, is a highly epic movie and the promotion behind it was just as extreme. DeMille recreated giant granite slabs of the Ten Commandment tablets and places them in thousands of cities throughout America. Charlton Heston and Yul Brenner even had to "christen" some of these tablets before the movie's release. All of this led to legal problems and controversy, which didn't do anyone any favors, reports Chron.
7 Best: Ryan Seacrest Gets Ashes Spilled On Him For The Dictator
The Dictator isn't Sacha Baron Cohen's most beloved movie, but it involved a ridiculous publicity stunt that's possibly more famous than the movie itself. While on the red carpet for the Academy Awards, an in-character Sacha Baron Cohen as his Dictator character carries an urn with him that he claims has the ashes of Kim Jong-Il. Cohen spills the contents on Seacrest and ruins his suave look. It's a stunt that's made Seacrest jumpy around Cohen on red carpet events for years to come.
6 Worst: Down Missouri Way Led A Mule Down Fifth Avenue
Down Missouri Way is a musical from the '40s about a trained mule named Shirley who experiences a strange burst of fame. Vulture reports that to promote the movie, Shirley was led down Fifth Avenue up to Rockefeller Center with an ad for the film on her back. The stunt gained a lot of attention and press, but the film itself didn't turn out to make a big dent at the cinema.
5 Best: Aubrey Plaza Interrupts Will Ferrell For The To-Do List
The MTV Movie Awards have turned into a recurring environment for actors and movies to execute wild PR stunts. In 2013 during the awards, Will Ferrell was a winner, but during his acceptance speech Aubrey Plaza interrupted and tried to accept the award for him. Ferrell stayed composed through it all, but didn't appear to necessarily be in on the stunt. During it all, Plaza was labeled with "#TheToDoList," which was on its way to theaters.
4 Worst: Borat Tried To Storm The White House
Sacha Baron Cohen's talk show circuit for Borat was extremely enjoyable because many people still weren't aware of Sacha Baron Cohen or his characters. He takes advantage of this whenever he can and in 2006 he tried to enter the White House to invite George Bush to see the movie according to CheatSheet. He of course was stopped by Secret Service, but the event made headlines and the actual Kazakh government had to reach out and tell everyone that he's not actually a representative of their country.
3 Best: The Wackness Gave Away Free Weed With Its DVDs
The Wackness is an indie film that's all about the community that recreational drug use can foster together along with its positive attributes. To capitalize on that idea, The Wackness advertised that 1000 of their DVDs would include a free trip to Amsterdam, which includes marijuana upon arrival. The strategy caused a lot of controversy, but The Wackness and their PR company didn't back down with their ambitious strategy.
2 Worst: Blow Used Drug Paraphernalia As A Marketing Tool
This sounds like a particularly misguided endeavor, but perhaps in an effort to match the edginess of the Johnny Depp drug film, Blow, the movie handed out very unusual merchandise. Blow is all about the cocaine industry during the '70s, so the film's marketing administered "tiny mirrors" to people at sporting events and other public venues. This is at least more tactful than giving out actual illegal substances, but it didn't send the right message to many.
1 Best: Bruno Falls On Eminem
One of Sacha Baron Cohen's famous alter egos, Bruno, was presenting at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards for the Best Male Performance award. Part of Bruno's entrance involved flying in onto stage, but he prematurely fell on top of Eminem in an embarrassing display. It was all a strong way to promote the Bruno movie and it becomes clear how far it actually went when Eminem eventually revealed to the Daily Mail that he was in on the stunt.