Variety spotted what might be a first in movie marketing: a trailer presenting on-screen text slides of comments from Twitter about Open Road Film’s thriller trailer “The Grey.” The comments are from film critics and bloggers who saw the film in a private industry screening.
Marketing materials usually excerpt from published comments of professional movie critics.
“The Grey” is a R-rated survivalist action drama starring Liam Neeson that will premiere Jan. 27. Open Road is the startup theatrical distributor owned by the two largest theater circuits—Regal Entertainment and AMC Entertainment.
One of the slides from @headgeek666 says the movie “kicks unholy ass.” That’s from Ain’t It Cool News chief Harry Knowles. And an end slide presents Tweet addresses of the film’s top talent as a come-on for viewers to become followers (and receive marketing messages!).
“It’s not the first time tweets have been used in traditional marketing materials — that precedent appears to belong to ‘Paranormal Activity 3,’ whose trailers included several positive tweets prior to its October bow,” notes the Variety article by Josh L. Dickey. “The difference: Those 140-character-and-under reviews were issued by average citizens who got into early screenings, not professional writers and critics.”
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