Someone raised an interesting question to me recently: "Where's the marketing for Avatar?"
When you're as exposed to movie news as many of you reading this probably are, it seems as if nobody can stop talking about James Cameron's special project. For the past 2 years, especially, we've heard everything from how it's made to what it's going to represent. Whether or not that buzz spread into the mainstream, however, is a different story. Now Fox has less than two months to get the word out that, hey, in December there will be a huge, supposedly of great importance 3-D adventure film.
They'll start by showing a 3.5 minute trailer on one of the biggest sports days of the year, in the biggest sports stadium in the world, on the biggest video display in the world. It's big news. The new Avatar trailer is already available to watch online over at Yahoo!, but on Sunday, it'll play minutes before kickoff at the Cowboys-Seahawks game on the Diamond Vision screen, while also playing to millions watching at home.
A football game might be a weird choice to promote this alien planet, environmental-themed, furry-loaded sci-fi fantasy hybrid, but it's really their first major attempt to push the film onto the mainstream. The core audience is already established from Comic-Con and online blogs and trade write-ups, but maybe football fans can translate better to the casual audience (ah, stereotyping). But is it too little, too late? If you compare the buzz for it to the buzz for, say, Star Trek or G.I. Joe earlier this year, it's virtually non-existent. For this movie, that's unacceptable.
Back in August, what's supposed to be a big Avatar Day event turned lukewarm when the free 20-minute footage screenings at IMAX theaters worldwide came back with reports of half-empty attendance (at least here in America). It seems that many people just haven't heard of the film, let alone know what a laborious and supposedly revolutionary production it is.
For the geek crowd, there's plenty of reasons to be excited for Avatar. It's got near-photorealistic CGI, groundbreaking 3-D cameras, and state-of-the-art motion-capture technology. It's also hailed as the return of James Cameron to action-packed science-fiction. It's a film that's fifteen years in the making and took three years to produce. There have been quotes from various top-of-the-line filmmakers who've visited the set declaring that the movie will be a game-changer. The hype that the release of Avatar is a monumental occasion was already set for this spectrum a long time ago.
How do you convey that same anticipation to the populace? I don't know, talk shows? They can't, and would just have to rely on selling what's there onscreen. Interesting that the trailer is cut to be appealing in that regard: a fantasy movie of transplanting yourself into another world, in another body, and fighting enormous battles (maybe that's why I prefer the teaser). It also lists Cameron's list of accomplishments, in case his name doesn't ring a bell to the younger set. They need to extend the Avatar hype in traditional media fast—or it'll end up being grouped as just another CG-heavy action movie, which is what we're hoping it's not. I'm going to get curiouser and curiouser as we approach December 18th.
