Proof Read Blog

It seems like years ago since audiences sat and watched their beloved superhero favourites turn to dust on the big screen. But it was only earlier this year, April in fact, since fans were left feeling miserable about the fate of the Avengers - and since this fatal event fans have been awaiting news on the sequel. On Friday the 7th of December fans were treated, after days of rumours regarding its release, to the trailer for Avengers 4 titled Endgame;

Endgame raises several concerns about marketing, how on earth was it going to release a trailer without ruining the plot to the next one? Would it even be worth releasing a trailer as the hype around the film was more than enough, Marvel could of took a massive risk and not released any information about the film and left it until the premiere. Fans are that desperate for the next instalment and were in disbelief that a trailer would ever arrive. One fan was so fed up with the teases that they posted the following statement on Reddit;

Fed up Marvel Fans

Marvel did release the trailer and it took the internet by storm, it is now predicted to rake in a huge two billion at the box office , smashing the 24 hour views record reaching an impressive 289 million fans. These views were totalled up from views on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. 

Marvel Thanking It's Fans

So it was worth putting out a trailer as it took the world by storm, but what did it reveal ? Well it didn't really reveal anything at all. The trailer spent the majority of the time reeling over the events of Infinity War the earthbound heroes mope around and Tony Stark is about to die in space due to lack of resources. In a post credit like scene Scott Lang appears, despite being last seen stuck in the Quantum realm in Ant Man and The Wasp, with a glimmer of hope and wit. 

Marvel has developed a very good marketing strategy and breaks records every time but there are serious concerns leading into the future. I manged to speak to Adrian Perez an ex-Supervisor of Regional Marketing Operations & Asset Management, TWDC EMEA/UK (2017-2018) for Disney UK. Whilst he doesn't speak on the behalf of Marvel Studios we engaged in a very interesting discussion about Marvels marketing approach. The questions were sent on the 7th of December before the trailer was released, but answer the day after the trailer came out. Check out the interview, in the format of Q and A below;

1. With the Marvel Universe being heavily reliant on transmedia storytelling (I.E Marvels reliance on it’s all connected), does it become harder to begin marketing campaigns for the bigger scale films. For instance, the Avengers films, notably Avengers 4 whose trailer is rumoured to be released tomorrow. 

I would say it actually becomes significantly easier from a marketing standpoint, our industry has never been so saturated with content, so already having loyal fans engaged in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) conversations makes it easier to market for it, as the fans are doing the promoting for you + starting the conversation for you. I would say dropping the trailer online for Avengers 4 requires zero paid media budget, you don’t have to direct anyone to watch the trailer, fans are eagerly waiting for just the trailer to drop as much as the movie itself. The trailer which you speak of hit 50M views in just 1 day breaking YouTube records.

If anything from a marketing budget pov, a good strategy would be to optimize your paid-media budget by being selective and targeting demographics outside of MCU’s standard target audience, in the hope of attracting strangers and converting them into customers/promoters. But returning to my first point, transmedia storytelling, if done successfully, will convert your customers into promoters, and that is a vital strategy in an industry saturated with content and customers having so much breadth of choice.

2. Carrying on with that notion, do you see it as a purposeful decision to release the second Captain Marvel trailer, Avengers 4 and Spiderman Far from Home trailer in the same week. As Spiderman is the next film after Avengers 4, which must mean he survives the events of Infinity War despite turning to dust. 

It’s certainly a strategy, marketing for movies that are at different points in their timeline around the same time only creates even more speculation for the fans; ‘how does Spider-Man survive?’ ‘how can he possibly?’. The first rule of marketing is understand what audiences want, and MCU fans everywhere want answers, and they want them now. So if that’s what they want, that’s when you can be ingenious with your marketing strategy and tease, hint clues, mislead, create diversions and confusions about the fate of the characters and so on.

3. How long in advance do the campaigns begin to come together as Marvel has a strong sense of having films in phases. With only loose details of Phase 4, there must be plans for future films (which I know you can’t talk about due to NDA’s!) in the pipeline. 

The US/regional marketing team(s) are briefed on each new MCU entry around 15 months in advance, we tend to receive a no-fly list (list of spoilers to not reveal in the marketing campaign(s)) and then have to be very careful in our internal communications to all international teams to not leak out any spoilers in our own local cuts of external-facing promotional material. You’ve got to remember Walt Disney Studios is separate to Marvel Studios, so both entities/teams have to work together with as much time as possible to allow for stakeholder approvals before anything is released.

4. Now that the major heroes have already been covered in the cinematic universe, does it become harder trying to sell the more unknown characters to audiences. For instance, the first Guardians of the Galaxy was a massive risk as barely anyone knew about them but now the team is a household name. As I recall you mentioned Groot USB’s for a marketing campaign. How do you go about making a campaign for these lesser known properties? Marvel keeps discussing The Eternals at the minute and I know for a fact I barely know anything about it.

The key is to stagger new characters over time, you’ll realise the GOTG, Black Panther, Doctor Stranger + Spider-Man are all fairly new characters but have great affinity (especially Spider-Man who is an all-time favourite). I think the ultimate strategy which Marvel Studios have been very clever with, has been to turn these more new characters into dust in Infinity War. Like the saying ‘ you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’, this was the cleverest trick from the Studio to create that ultimate affinity from fans. Bringing them back (if Avengers 4 brings them all back) will be the ultimate testament as to how you establish new beloved characters to take the MCU torch into the future. But of course, we don’t know what future phases bring. With Disney having bought Fox and now having rights to the X-Men IP, who’s to say we’re not going to see Iron Man and Wolverine in the same shot in the not too long future, reprised by new movie stars.

5. With streaming services becoming more and more competitive, can you see production on the TV shows coming to a halt, so Marvel can keep productions in house. I ask this due to the recent cancellation of Marvels Netflix shows, with only Jessica Jones and The Punisher remaining. Could Agents of Shield and Marvels; The Runaways also face the axe as Disney + launches. Or do you see the shows returning under the Disney + brand?

If anything I remember Bob Iger saying IN a public statement how the long-term strategy is to have all of Disney’s productions sit underneath Disney+, which is an interesting strategy in itself, as you’re closing yourself off from other platforms/audiences to expose your content to. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Disney+ can penetrate the market which Netflix has already colonised vastly.

6. I remember reading an article a while back that stated Cinema adverts are made to be longer and more complex as the audience retention is stronger due to no distractions. In this sense does Marvel change the way it advertises the trailers? There is a strong sense of community online when a new Marvel trailer drops but there doesn’t seem to be any focus on exclusive trailers in the cinemas anymore. Would you say the internet is more of a priority for marketing as the world continues to become more and more mobile?

From an in-house pov, we haven’t had any research come our way that trailers should differ significantly across theatrical/online. I would say in our day and age trailers have become an online phenomenon, fans eagerly wait for the release of a trailer as much as the theatrical release of a movie. It’s exciting and a testament to succeeding franchises + transmedia storytelling.

7. In terms of audience markets, does the content of the trailers and marketing change much? China is famous for having different film posters, but does it change between America and Europe for example? 

 Yes the marketing can be tweaked ever so slightly on a local level due to audience insights very specific to that country or region. Cultural guidelines are also very important. You also have to remember that there are creative teams all over the world who probably want to do some refinement to promotional content to make the content feel more topical. I remember here in the UK this summer when The Meg came out and roared at the box office, the UK marketing team decided to create some TV spots to surf that wave for Ant-Man & the Wasp, creating a specific TV spot that made fun of ‘something large coming out of the water this summer’, with then supersized Ant-Man coming out of the water ‘instead of the Meg’. It’s a topical way to surf the wave as such. It’s clever.

8. Finally, we know a trailer is coming for Avengers 4. Do you think the marketing would be more successful if a trailer wasn’t going to be released? There is a huge traction online already for the upcoming film and everyone is still talking about the films events. Would that be too much of a risk?

I think here the key is ‘less is more’, some of the best trailers in movie marketing history tell very little about the story is about, in the case of the MCU some of the core strategies are going to have to be misleading fans, teasing the fate of the characters and using their own fan theories against them. In the Infinity War trailers Captain America’s + Iron Man’s deaths were hinted but here we are. I’m not part of the team responsible for the Avengers 4 marketing but I sure am curious to see how their strategy is going to map out. For their first key beat they’ve tackled the emotional resonance Thanos’ global 50% wipe out had + the appearance of 2 key characters we missed in Infinity War. They’re realising little nuggets and clues over time.

INTERVIEW CONCLUDED 

With two trailers down and only one to go for 2018, Marvel is about to sail into a successful 2019. Once the Spider-Man trailer is out you may here from me again if it has anything substantial to say about the industry, if not you'll here from me next year as Disney comes closer to officially merging with Fox.

As we begin 2019, two of the the worlds major conglomerates are set the combine. The merger between Fox and Disney was set to finalise this month, but has now been pushed back to March. With the merger comes the rights to the X-Men franchise, whilst projects such as Dark Phoenix and New Mutants are still going ahead - other projects, X-Force (Essential Deadpool's Avengers) and Gambit have reportedly been scrapped from Fox's development slate.  Allowing Disney to begin a fresh start on introducing the characters into it's own universe. 

You would think Disney is only interested in purchasing Fox for the X-Men rights, yet that's not the bigger picture. Disney was strategic in purchasing Marvel back in 2009. Before the merger, Disney had been stronger in appealing to young female demographics with the likes of Hannah Montana and the Disney Princess animations. At the time media analyst David Joyce said the merger "helps give Disney more important exposure to the young male demographic that they have sort of lost some ground with in recent years." Despite having a treasure trove of characters, the well known white male heroes were focused on first. Drawing in the big crowds that Disney never reached. This led to box office gold and as the market was changing and audiences were wanting new and unrepresented superheroes, Marvel began to role out the likes of Black Panther and Captain Marvel. Female led films are now one of the most profitable and between 2014 and 2017 researchers found that the top grossing blockbusters all starred women in leading roles. The merger meant Disney had a deck of cards to play with, and unfolding them became strategic. Not only did they control the cinema landscape, but they also had a big sway in superhero television series.

Fox has big shares in Hulu and with Netflix continuing to dominate the landscape, Disney is attempting to prepare itself as a competitor. Hulu has begun to accelerate year over year and now stands around the 25 million subscriber mark, thanks to shows such as The Handmaids Tale. Compared to Netflix, which has 137 subscribers, Hulu is still far from hitting the mark. The SVOD landscape is dramatically competitive, and signing up to services is easier than ever. But its even easier to cancel. 

Disney CEO, Bob Iger has hinted towards increasing programming investments in Hulu once the merger is complete; “We aim to use the television production capabilities of the combined company to fuel Hulu with a lot more original programming, original programming that we feel will enable Hulu to compete even more aggressively in the marketplace." Disney as a brand is distinctly different to the content offered on Hulu, as Disney is family friendly focused. The question is will Disney attempt to bring Hulu under their wing or keep it a separate entity? Disney+ is already looking at housing Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, National Geographic and of course Disney. But why then pay for another service, despite both services being supplied by the same conglomerate. Nonetheless, Iger has previously indicated there is a potential to bundle together Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ into one package.  

This news may give hope to the Marvel television shows that were previously on Netflix. Fans have long been trying to understand what is going on, videos such as the one above were saturated on Youtube. As despite my bold claim Daredevil was safe in a previous post - it too was soon axed. Would Marvel purposefully sabotage its successful shows ready for it's merger? With being more mature and gory, they definitely don't belong on the Disney + platform. As they are currently developing a Loki and a separate Vision and Scarlett Witch spin off series. There is even rumours of a Lady Sif series. Perhaps the shows could be revived and brought onto Hulu where the Marvel show Runaways premieres. Time will only tell, Netflix is still planning on releasing The Punisher Season 2 and Jessica Jones Season 3, yet they are more than likely to be canned after they premiere. 

In order for Disney to succeed in the SVOD marketplace they need to focus on long term retention. Marvel so far has done incredibly well to maintain its audience over 22 films, and their strategic releasing of content has successful. Now Disney has got more content and audiences to play with they need to offer a steady stream of content that allows for repetitive incoming. They are now angling on targeting multiple generational audiences with its purchasing of Fox. 

“Overall, Disney is picking up content that appeals to the millennial audience and, most importantly, an audience who engages with these brands and collections in a very enthusiastic manner,” Jim Fosina, CEO of Fosina Marketing Group, told Observer. “In a world where the value of a media company is represented by its ability to create content that engages and retains market-able audiences, Disney is merging with the ‘mother-lode’ of great brands and content.

Disney isn't the only brand to begin compiling a massive library of content. These days there is something for everyone and companies have to focus on the diversity of the audiences tastes. Other companies such as Apple, HBO, Facebook and even Youtube which use to be a grassroots video library; are all popping up in the SVOD field. With Disney+ coming in late 2019 after the merger is complete, the next few years will determine how the theatrical and television landscape gets re-drawn and whether other studios will attempt to merge to compete in the streaming world. The merger would leave Disney/Fox on a value of around $200B and is much bigger compared to Comcast ($151B) and Netflic at ($111B) - the merger is much smaller compared to tech companies. Apple currently stands at around $745B, perhaps Fox should be less worried about rival studios and more concerned about technology companies. If they were to being channelling their funds into productions as Netflix has been doing, but on a larger scale, then a new revolution may begin.

As you may remember from the Christmas break, we were reportedly due a Spider-Man Far From Home trailer back in December. After complete silence the rumours surfaced again and it was eventually released yesterday after teasing from Tom Holland on twitter - which you can check out below.

The film has caused a tide of  social media discussion as fans are debating over whether or not the film takes place before or after Infinity War and what the fate of Tony Stark is. As characters who were seen during to dust Infinity War are now seen alive and well again back up to their usual antics. For a deeper discussion into the marketing issues refer back to my post here which was about the culmination of Phase 3 and the start of Phase 4. 

The trailer is a surprise as it was officially confirmed by Kevin Feige that the film would be taking place after the events of Endgame and will start minutes after the films climax. This is not only problematic for audiences but it may underpin the climatic events of Endgame. This is not Marvel's fault however, as if you look closely at the trailer Sony is the first company title card. The MCU has a vast amount of film rights and with X-Men appearing due to the Fox merger there is still a series of characters Marvel doesn't fully own. So what does this mean and what are its effects? Well lets take a look. 

(A simplified graphic detailing Marvels Character film rights)

1. The Hulk; Whilst he has been a staple of the MCU, Marvel only has the rights to Bruce Banner and the Hulk as long as he appears alongside a roster of other well known characters such as the Avengers. If Marvel wanted to have him in a starring role then legally the film would have to be distributed by Universal. Hence before the Disney merger there was The Incredible Hulk in 2010, even before Disney Iron Man was once a property under Paramount but owned by Marvel. To keep it under their empire, Disney have not been wiling to do a solo Hulk film to maximise their own profits and has since tagged along with Thor in Thor: Ragnarok. Adapting the famous story-line Planet Hulk to work around the rights issue. Marvel clearly also don't have any immediate plans to purchase the rights from Universal so as it stands the Hulk remains with them alongside other minor characters.

2. Spider-Man and Co: Spider-Man was one of the franchises that was sold off by Marvel in 1999 as they were close to bankruptcy.  They sold them to Columbia pictures, a subsidiary of Sony in the hopes they would produce the next blockbuster. The sheer scale of the franchise is said to be over 900 Marvel characters.  There are a handful of shared characters, who rights are not so complex but there are heroes or villains which are either shared or blocked off completely. With either Marvel or Sony being completely blocked off from using them. 

There are specific time limits associated with the rights. Sony need to release a new Spider-Man movie at least once every five years. Failure to do so means the rights revert to Marvel. Hence the two previous Spider-Man franchises; Sami Rami's and The Amazing Spider-Man led by Andrew Garfield. As Sami Rami's Spider-Man 4 fell through in 2010 and the last one was in 2007. So the Amazing Spider-Man had a quick turn around time and released in 2012 to avoid losing the rights. The new franchise was meant to launch a Spider-Man shared universe around the Sinister Six but the sequel bombed heavily at the box office and was slated by critics. Sony was under pressure and failed. With it now bombing, Sony needed to pivot and work out how to save itself. 

(There was a heavy demand from fans back in 2012, who wanted Spider-Man to appear in the Avengers. As a result there was a variety of memes spawned in a similar vein to above)

In 2014 Marvel noticed the sinking ship and struck a deal with Sony that would allow Spider-Man to appear in Captain America: Civil War. Sony was initially unconvinced but it became public after the Sony studio leak and they committed under the weight of the pressure.  In the deal Sony finance and distribute the films and Marvel produce them; meaning Sony gets all the profits from the films. In return Marvel can use the character in the larger scale films such as The Avengers and profit from any merchandise associated with the Spider-Man franchise so both studios win. 

Sony is still allowed to make its own universe of characters like Venom, which is now getting a sequel moving forward  and want to use other secondary characters like Kraven and Morbius to form their own box office hits. But there is a catch, Spider-Man cannot appear in them which makes it challenging for Sony and required several rewrites for Venom to make sense in its own right and Sony's characters won't appear in any MCU films. Sony is holding out and hoping their franchise will one day be retconned  into the MCU in a future deal. As Tom Holland is contracted for six Marvel films and there is presumably a limit with the deal between the two. So when renegotiation's will need to happen Sony may have to strong arm Marvel as they will be in a stronger position and won't need to reboot once again. And there is only so many times the franchise can be rebooted without fans getting bored as this is now the third iteration.

Sony has also been having its own success with Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse an animated film following the Miles Morales Spider-Man. This has no ties to the MCU and has allowed Sony to have its own freedoms as there will never be an animated Spider-Man tied into the MCU so without the complex rights we might not of had the chance to see it on screens. As Marvel continues to expand it's empire it will have to continue to renegotiate its deals if they want to carry on at the rate they are going. But at the end of the day, they now have plenty of properties to work with. 

With Marvel now reclaiming its properties and continuing to dominate the box office, maybe Sony should stick to animations and look at areas that Marvel isn't doing to help break the mould. As the film has now gone on to win several awards such as the Golden Globes for Animation and Best Animated Feature by the African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA). Whereas neither Sony or Marvel has won a best featured award for live action. 

The countdown to the Oscars officially began today with its list of nominations, and jumping out on that list is a historic first. Not only is Black Panther the first MCU film to be Oscar nominated for Best Picture - its the first superhero film to do so. Marvels smash blockbuster hit was nominated for a grand total of seven Oscars. Panther has already gathered a huge amount of praise this awards season and has also been nominated for the Critic's Choice Award, SAG, BAFTAs and even a history making Golden Globes nomination, for (you guessed it) the first superhero movie to be nominated for Best Drama. So it is no surprise to see it crop up this afternoon.

But by being the first superhero film for Best Picture, perhaps the Academy is finally starting to give superhero films the recognition they deserve. Traditionally superhero films have been nominated for the technical categories like Sound and Visual Effects. They have been a few exceptions, Logan was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay last year and The Dark Knight actor Heath Ledger got a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2009. The Dark Knight also received 7 other nominations but failed on the nomination for the big prize of Best Picture. Even Wonder Woman which was a buzzed about potential Oscar contender never got any recognition at all. 

So the question becomes why now? Well it makes sense that Black Panther is the first. It dominated the box office, with a whopping $700 million dollars domestically and was the biggest film of 2018. Finally proving that a big tentpole blockbuster fronted by an all black cast would have an audience and be successful. Even so much that it became a cultural movement, which is normally a huge Oscar criteria on the checklist.  You could argue Wonder Woman did the same for women, but given the track record of the Oscars that was highly unlikely. Even after the motivation of the #MeTooMovement and Francis McDormands heartfelt speech. This year there was no women nominations for the big categories of Best Picture or Best Director. One step forward, two steps back.  It is not all bleak however, for Black Panther Hannah Bleacher became the first black production designer to be nominated for an Oscar.  You can check out her incredible work below, as she talks about bringing Wakanda to life. 

But is Black Panther actually being recognised for its cultural movement or is The Academy drawing on its star power to bring in ratings? Black Panther isn't the only odd one out for typical nominations.  Bohemian Rhapsody also managed an nomination despite its mixed reviews and controversy around its director Bryan Singer and  Roma became the first nominated Netflix film. The build up to this years Oscars has been a mess, there was a steep ratings decline last year and they are still hostless as the ceremony approaches. By nominating high profile films, that could help the Academy draw in bigger numbers and avoid creating a niche ceremony where barely anyone has watched the contenders. This strategy has worked in the past with the blockbuster Titanic which drew in 55 million viewers in 1998.  

Last year the ratings has sank to an all time low of 26.5 million viewers, but a lot has changed since 1998. The increased viewing options increased, more award ceremony's have sprung up and there has been a large among of hostility towards Hollywood's left leaning politics. Even more so, every big moment will soon be live on social media seconds after it happens so audiences no longer need to wait around and watch the whole event when they can watch snippets at their own amusing.  The more niche oriented titles from the past few years such as Moonlight and Spotlight have since led to the belief that the Oscars were becoming too narrow. Studios that rely on comic book adaptations for its hits let the the proposal for a popular film category which was soon scrapped after ridicule. This effect seems to have spread to Twitter and Reddit today when the nominations were announced. Many were happy to see Black Panther and superheroes finally get some recognition - whilst others were seeing straight through the nomination choice. 

(https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/aimn6l/2019_oscars_nominations_list/)

(https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/aimn6l/2019_oscars_nominations_list/)

The latest rumours are that the cast of the Avengers are to present throughout the night instead of having a host. After Kevin Hart stepped down following resurfaced tweets that contained high levels of homophobic behaviour.  Using the Avenger cast fuels the flames for the notion of highlighting more popular films, but interestingly Infinity War only crops up once in the nominations list for Best Visual Effects. Going back to the age old tradition for superhero films. 

 Critical response aside, it is interesting that Marvel didn't push for its big dashing all guns blazing Avengers film to be Best Picture nominated following the vain of Lord of The Rings. But culturally Black Panther had a larger impact so in those terms it makes perfect sense. Not only now does it have a high roster of well known films, but those stars will also being adding to the high profile presenter roster. Who knows maybe now the Oscars are finally opening their nominations to less narrow prestigious choices , this time next year we may be looking at a nomination for Endgame. But in the meantime its time for the Avengers to assemble, if the rumours hold up, on the 24th of February ready to announce the latest batch of awards.