There’s No Such Thing As Bad Publicity, Especially if You Lie a Bit
Every year, dozens, if not hundreds, of movies come out, all hoping to reach large audiences. But there’s only so much time in the world, and movie tickets can be expensive. Moviegoers can’t be blamed for wanting to be sure that they’re going to have a good time before they fork over the $15 and two hours to see your film.
That’s where the movie reviewers come in. Most major publications have someone whose job it is to watch new movies before the film hits theaters; then the reviewer puts pen to paper and shares their impressions with readers far and wide. Typically, the reviewers also offer a rating — zero to four or five stars, with the top score depending on the publication — to make it quick and easy for consumers to know if the movie is worth it. Movie reviews aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes take those scores and give an even quicker way for the rest of us to determine whether to watch the movie.
It’s that information that many fans skip the 2015 movie “The Legend.” The movie — a biopic about twin English gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray — starred Tom Hardy in both lead roles. It received a 60% score on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that 102 of the 171 professional reviewers thought the film was good, but just under 60 of them thought otherwise. The critic consensus, per the Tomato, was “As a gangster biopic, Legend is deeply flawed, but as a showcase for Tom Hardy — in a dual role, no less — it just about lives up to its title.” It earned only about $43 million at the box office, most of it in Britain, on a $25 million budget. Many fans, seeing the mixed reviews, skipped it.
But mixed reviews aren’t a problem for the marketing arm of movie studios — they’re very good at highlighting the wins and ignoring those critics who pan the film. In this case, producers released a poster, shown below, highlighting a bunch of the 11 four- and five-star reviews that the movie received from prominent publications.
That’s nothing special, right? Well, not unless you look closely. Look right between the heads of the two characters portrayed by Hardy and you’ll see The Guardian’s rating right there in the middle. Implicitly, it’s a four-star review, with a pair of stars hiding behind the actor’s heads. (I think the grammar is right there… how do you handle one person playing two characters?) But there are only two stars actually shown, and there’s good reason for that: the reviewer, Benjamin Lee, panned the movie and gave it a two-star review.
The marketers behind the movie probably weren’t trying to mislead consumers by implying that Lee and The Guardian actually liked their movie — the studio could have easily found another positive review to highlight had it wanted a 12th good review to go with the others listed on the poster. Rather, this was almost certainly a PR stunt. As Consequence notes, “the placement of the Guardian’s review was certainly intentional and has already paid dividends in terms of publicity. As of publication, the poster appears on the front page of Reddit Movies.” The stunt also generated headlines for the movie in the BBC, Slate, and the AV Club, among others.
And yes, Lee noticed as well. He wrote a follow-up to his review about how the film treated his two-star pan, noting that “there’s something maddeningly brilliant about this promotional sleight of hand” and stating that he was “totally alright with it.” He also used the opportunity to make one last dig on the movie itself, stating, “I might still dislike Legend, but I like its marketing team. If only they could have written the script.”
Bonus fact: Many of us dream of being astronauts, but maybe astronauts dream of being movie stars? As CBS reports, “for every space shuttle mission since STS-96 in 1999, which was the first time a U.S. shuttle docked with the International Space Station, the Johnson Space Center’s graphics department created some pretty cool (and kitschy) mission posters.” You can view the posters at that link, and as you’d imagine, there are a lot of sci-fi/fantasy spoofs included.
From the Archives: The Genie’s Art: The problem with the Aladdin (the animated version from 1992, starring Robin Williams) movie poster.