Before Night Rises?

By Steven Zeitchik
Seeing Spencer Breslin, one of the young stars of "The Happening," tell Jay Leno several times Wednesday night "I can't say" when asked about basic plot points in Night's new film (Leno's semi-quizzical response, "You're here to promote a movie and you can't talk about it?'), may have highlighted Fox's biggest marketing hurdle, the one even bigger than some of the bad blog buzz, namely: how do you promote a movie whose premise is intentionally mysterious?

We guess since the stars can't talk about the movie it's kind of fitting that we didn't get a chance to see it at the world premiere earlier in the week. So no synopsis or quick take yet. But we did catch up with Fox co-chief of marketing Pam Levine at the very pleasant afterparty, who explained a little about what the studio was trying to do to overcome some of the naysaying.

"The scrutiny has been mostly from the press. I'm not sure moviegoers are paying attention to that. They just want to see if the movie is good and compare it to his previous films," she said.

Night is of course one of the few filmmakers who gets retailed with his movies. That's great for his brand, but does studio research show that having his name in marketing materials is a factor in ticket-buying? Levine thinks so. "He does have a following so, yes, absolutely. I think people are also interested because it's his first R-rated movie."

That rating is actually being used a marketing tool, as the trailer demonstrates. And we can see how it does allow for the movie to incorporate material it otherwise wouldn't have -- but is the MPAA-given judgment an appealing element unto itself? "I think there's a curiosity about what he's going to do with that, so we wanted to call attention to it," Levine said. "I wouldn't call this movie counterprogramming. But people in June want something a little more adult and an R suggests that."

The strange thing is that after "Lady in the Water," Night is ready for a rebound - not necessarily because this movie is fated to be great but because the critical and commercial expectations are low enough that, say, 50% on Rotten Tomatoes and $25 million this weekend will clear expectations. Call it the Night curve -- come out of nowhere and surprise with a debut like "The Sixth Sense," then sink low enough with a flop like "Lady" that you're primed to surprised again. And Night fans always do love the unexpected ending...

Comments

[simone]

I can't wait until America's Got Talent returns on june 17th at 9pm! check it out! :)

[Ron H.]

NBC, I know you are desperate for ratings but could you please refrain from posting SPAM comments like those from "Simone" here? Do you really think this kind of lame tactic in a TRADE PAPER is going to bring you viewers? THR...please give us an option to report SPAM comments so NBC will take it's sad marketing elsewhere?

[LSO]

I thought it was very original addition to the marketing campaign for Fox to use the film's R rating as a major part of their campaign. It was intriguing and caught my attention. While the movie itself was certainly not Night's best, but the marketing campaign was a success. Any other thoughts about the use of the R rating in the campaign or anyone know if this has been done before?