Wednesday, October 21, 2015
I don’t have much to say about these new Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 character posters that dropped this morning from Lions Gate Entertainment. But they are just another example of what has been an incredibly confident and genuinely engaging pieces of poster art going back to the first sequel if not the first film outright. We talk a lot about generic poster art and photoshop atrocities, but I would argue that the various Hunger Games posters for the four film series have often been genuine works of art. I loved the secondary poster for the first film as well as the mythic painting used as a teaser poster for Catching Fire. The Capitol propaganda posters for Mockingjay part I were remarkably clever, to say nothing of the skewed commercials that were of course discreet teasers for the film. And of course these posters, which are counterpoint offerings, propaganda posters for the revolution this time around, are rather gorgeous.
Moreover, and this is part of what’s impressed be over the last year, is that these posters don’t state the name of the film or even the character being highlighted. Much of the unconventional promotional materials were confident enough in the intelligence of their audience to not necessarily slap “Hunger Games!!” all over the place just to make sure audiences knew what was being teased. Like the other pieces mentioned above, they work as stand-alone art as well as marketing, which of course is my favorite kind of marketing. And the designs, which basically hide the stars in darkness and war paint, shows a genuine affirmative confidence not just in the product (I am assuming the finale is pretty good) but in the that that the fans will follow them home.
Anyway, as happens from time to time, I like to take a moment to point out when I rather like a piece of marketing or a specific poster for a blockbuster franchise. I rather adore the Ant-Man posters as well, both the ones I wrote about earlier (that explicitly reference The Avengers) and the newer character ones that place our hero in the tiny center of the action, but I’ll be able to talk about that more after the review embargo drops on Wednesday. In the meantime, these are gorgeous and striking bits of promotional art. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 will open around the world on November 20th, 2015 in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Jena Malone, and Elisabeth Banks. It is written by Danny Strong, and is directed by Francis Lawrence. As always, we’ll see, but it will be fascinating to see how a Hunger Games finale plays in a year when we’ve already had two $400m+ domestic grossers and three over/under $1.385b worldwide grossers with another (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) likely on the way.
