Something that’s been on the brain…
All this “Inglourious Basterds” news has hit and it’s good news for the fans of Quentin Tarantino (no major cuts to the film, some soundtrack notes) but we haven’t even got to the iffy partnership announced late last week.
The Weinstein Company’s dubious attempt to cross-market their film, “Inglourious Basterds” to young, meat-headed Ultimate Fighting Championship fans is just a very peculiar, perhaps desperate proposition for a picture that has already suffered luke-warm Cannes reviews, a campy trailer and pre-release prequel talk that most likely exists just to hold the public’s interest. Obviously they’ve had some financial issues this year and just yesterday some more bad news hit when it was noted that Liberty Media’s Encore/Starz likely wouldn’t be investing any funds into the company.
So, set to be marketed tomorrow evening in Vegas via animated billboards, advertisements inside of the ring and a trailer to be shown to the 11,000 fans in attendance at Mandalay Bay for a pay-per-view event, is oddly enough director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film.
These are people who love tits and beer. The same goons that want to rip “Bruno” to pieces in the feature film (you’ll know what we’re talking about after the weekend when you see it). Meanwhile, ‘Basterds’ is set in WWII, and features long, drawn out conversations in French and German over milk and strudel and only minimal amounts of bloodshed. Talk about disconnect.
The bait and switch-type marketing has been happening since day one and all studios attempt this to an extent — mis-sell their films — but The Weinstein Company seems particularly careless here (or reckless even) and they’ve already tested the limits with schlocky posters and trailers alluding to a lot more action and violence then is actually in the picture. If executed correctly, bait and switch can grab the attention of audiences who wouldn’t have normally been interested and ultimately, get extra asses in the seats. “The Road’s” trailer, with its shameless insertion of stock destruction and news footage is a recent example of bait and switch, but one that will most likely end with more tickets being sold to a hard-sell, artsy flick. The insertion of apocalyptic destruction is tweaking things, but it’s also there for all of three seconds. It’s not revamping the movie.
However, in the case of “Inglourious Basterds,” the Weinsteins may have finally pushed the cross-marketing a little to far. By aligning the union of UFC (which as bad as that shark jumping moment when Billy Corgan was on the WWE) with Tarantino makes Basterds look like it’s a Dimension film’s like Eli Roth-esque actioner. Basically dumb and dumber from the groin. However it’s largely nothing like that, it’s an European-feeling talk-fest done through Tarantino’s highly reflexive movieness and his distinctively American filter (it’s more Tarantino doing Truffaut’s “The Metro” with a few firecracker outbursts than it is QT making a traditional war picture, or even creating an homage to traditional “guys on a mission”flix). It’s not a B-movie like the 1978 original, nor is it an action flick (nor is it an art-film either). Regardless, you can only bait and switch so much with a product that like before audiences wise up and begin to hate you.
The whole thing just smells like disaster in the making, even “Kill Bill 1” had a vague UFC connection, or at least, if it was positioned that way the audience wouldn’t have ripped out the seats and hurled them at your head, but imagine trying to sell the slow pace of “Jackie Brown” to that crowd? That actually might provoke more violence that’s already in the ring, especially because you know they’re going to show the UFC crowd only the action moments.
It could end up hurting the gross from both ends, the UFC crowd will certainly be disappointed by the inert talk fest with its requisite knowledge of classic cinema and the original art-house crowd will be put off by the film’s aggro marketing strategy. The already hurting Weinstein’s are going to end up worse off after this expensive last ditch effort than they were before they spent their first dime marketing ‘Basterds.’
Worse off, aligning the ‘Basterds’ with dunderheads like UFC does a huge disservice to the film itself and feels rather like an insult. We didn’t particularly love “Inglourious Basterds,” but Jesus Christ it’s still a million times better than the TNT Monster-Truck-like garbage these guys are generally putting down over brewski’s with the boys.
i agree it's totally misleading but bro-dawg douche money is just as good as intellectual film lover money. And let's be honest, the Weinsteins have run out of options at this point (have they ever made a profitable film?). Maybe they can take a page from the Gi Joe marketing book and start flying helicopters over Guido beach.
I'm gonna agree with this, but I must say I do like UFC (maybe I'm not your average fan I guess.)
This post is as stupid as a UFC match or a Christopher Nolan film – brash, condescending and misguided.
You seem to look over the fact that UFC's pay-per-view ratings are in the MILLIONS, which is why TWC would choose this route of promotion. It's demographics are more in line with boxing's more affluent, non-hicks than wrestling's opposite of that (the fact that they usually hold events in Vegas should tell you something); unlike wrestling, UFC is mixed-martial arts sport-type thing that actually happens without storylines. Not to mention, it is not going to backfire on these arthouse types you speak of because they don't pay attention to UFC or where a film is marketed; a majority of the viewership has likely seen at least one Tarantino film.
(Whatever happened to the rule of "if you talk about something, know what the fuck you are talking about"?)
And you also forgot that The Road was a selection of Oprah's Book Club, which makes it as far from hard-sell as possible. The sales of the book also in that MILLIONS range now. That alone refutes this "arty" nonsense.
"It's demographics are more in line with boxing's more affluent, non-hicks than wrestling's opposite of that"
winner of today's poorly constructed sentence award.
It's clearly a UFC fan, go easy on him.
I'm not a UFC fan, but I am put off by the condescending, ugly tone towards its viewers in this article. Not a shining moment for the site.
Wasn't one Jeff Wells enough?
Yawn.
I really hope Oprah's magical touch pushes The Road. But even with The Magical Touch, because it is such a depressing story, I don't think it'll profit. Unless it turns into an Oscar heavy weight. Viggo is due for another nom.
I'm both a Tarantino and a UFC fan and I'm not seeing "Inglourious Basterds".
If the kid in this thread talking about Oprah's "magic touch" thinks this movie is opening up to even more than $20 million dollars (that's being incredibly generous), he's dangerously deluded.
It may be misleading but it will work. A lot of these "young meatheads" (huge generalization) are going to recognize Brad Pitt as the badass dude from Fight Club and that's enough of a driver to get their money. Bros love Brad Pitt–no two ways about it.
It's still going to lose money though.
Good to see a couple people already pointed out, but your article is full of hate and scorn. You point the finger and shout 'bigot' when you yourself are meeting the definition of the word.
I've never found your blog before and I guarantee you I'll never bother coming back.
Hold on, Robert. I write weekly box office entries where I give the movies funny, irreverent names (e.g. Fartformers, Pubic Enemies!). You can't bail on that!
Haven't seen the film, so I can't say its a bait-and-switch… but I do read this blog and am saddened by your characterization of UFC fans. Some are meat heads, I agree. Some, and by most accounts the quieter majority, are not.
Please, think before you judge (or type, for that matter).
I agree with some of what the responses have been. I'm not a UFC fan and don't really care for it, but I feel like the first trailer released (to all audiences) was a "bait-and-switch" move based on what I've read about the movie. Otherwise they'd include the foreign dialogue, more of Shosanna, etc.
From the trailer with a guy walking out of a tunnel with a baseball bat aimed at a German's head this would seem like a pretty "meathead" movie. Or the tag line "You haven't seen war until you've seen Tarantino's war" is pretty much brute nonsense too.
However, the marketing move of tie-ing your movie to a UFC event is cheasy enough, and I'm sure the Weinstein Company thought something like "hey, these guys like fighting, let's show them Tarantino's war movie". Like the blogger alluded to, it's how any studio would go about it.
Hey, fuck you. The films they usually advertise to the UFC crowd ARE pretty shitty (as is pretty much all Spike programming – Manswers, dear god), but just because THEY continually condescend to us doesn't mean YOU have to. I know plenty of doctors, lawyers, artists, and people with post-graduate educations who love MMA, myself included. I like classic films AND I love to see people hit each other in the face. Believe it or not, there are those of us out there confident enough to admit it without worrying about scaring our hipster friends at our Ivy League cheese parties.
You want to know who they're advertising to? I guess it's me. I'd love to think I'm super unique and all, but then, maybe UFC just found an advertiser not aiming for the LCD for once.
I have a feeling that Tarantino's film will have a strong opening weekend and then after that it will fall-off dramatically as word-of-mouth spreads.
The guy who runs the Perez Hilton of film sites is offended, funny.
The guy who calls me the Perez Hilton of movie blogs (good one, btw) is anonymous. Typical.
And yeah, maybe I shouldn't be offended, and in a way, I'm not. I don't deny the Affliction/Tapout crowd are megadouches. But think of it this way: the sport's called Mixed Martial Arts. Have you ever been to a martial arts gym? Do you know what kind of guys gravitate to martial arts (and who are the UFC's core fanbase)? For the most part they're not big meatheads. Big meatheads don't usually bother learning martial arts because they think they can just rely on being big meatheads. The guys who are into martial arts are generally small and somewhat cerebral, guys who want to improve themselves by learning a craft. You can verify this by going to any martial arts class, I promise you.
Also, this post makes it sound like tits and beer are bad. They are not.