In a story published online last night, Variety’s Sharon Swart named the 15 films across both the Cannes Film Festival and the Cannes market that are expected to attract the most attention from buyers. At least one of the titles, Steve McQueen’s Hunger, has been bought in the hours since the story hit the website. At least one more, described as a “martial arts fantasy actioner, currently shooting in Romania…[starring] Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore and Japanese popstar Gackt,” sounds unspeakably (but not necessarily unsaleably) ridiculous.
Two more of the films on Swart’s list are related in that they were made the focus of unexpected and unwanted attention in January by the death of Heath Ledger.
Death sells. Movies. Apartments. You name it. So, it isn’t too surprising to learn that toys from the upcoming film The Dark Knight are flying off the shelves. According to the New York Post, action figures of The Joker, which are somewhat modeled after late actor Heath Ledger (I don’t see the resemblance, even in the more detailed figure) have sold out completely in New York City after debuting in stores a week ago. An employee of Toys “R” Us claimed the warehouse is all out, too, though a company spokesperson says stock of the figures will continue to be replenished.
Considering Mattel isn’t likely trying to cash in on Ledger’s death, there’s no reason to think the toys are in limited supply. So why are people buying them in bulk (one guy apparently bought 30 at one time) and/or selling them on eBay for marked-up prices? Even if there is an extreme demand for the figures now, there won’t be much interest in the future. Especially if Mattel’s entire run is enough to supply all the toy stores in the U.S. (not to mention the rest of the globe). Collector’s item it may be, but not in terms of financial investment. It just won’t be enough of a rarity in the long run.
Apparently there is a new trailer for The Dark Knightpremiering online tonight. But I’m not so good at playing those viral marketing games, plus I’m a relatively patient guy, so I’ll just wait until it hits YouTube and watch it tomorrow.
In the meantime, while you wait for the secret time that the trailer goes live (I hear 5:30 PM PST), here’s a video submitted to College Humor that compares the previous trailer for The Dark Knight with that of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman.
An NYC apartment listing was posted to Craigslist last week exploiting the vicinity of said 1BR to the site of Heath Ledger’s death. Obviously the posting has been removed, but the real-estate blog Curbedhas a screenshot. While it seems like a sick thing to do, it’s clear the apartment’s owner (or broker) was simply conscious of the Ledger death cult and was merely targeting a certain demo. After all, as we learned from last week’s AP article, the people just want to pay tribute to a fallen actor. And what better way to do that than to pay $2750 a month for a place in that actor’s neighborhood? With new solid wood cabinetry in which to store your Joker action figures!
What, too soon? It’s okay to advertise hotels near Paul Revere’s house, just because he’s been dead for 190 years as opposed to two months? It’s not like the posting said it was were Ledger died. It says “used to live“. Remember last week when I differentiated between those people who recognize Ledger as being a dead guy and those who mean to honor his life? This is related to the latter, which is clearly the more sensitive and virtuous.
There is so much going on these days in the marketing of The Dark Knight(see Chris Thilk’s most recent update/summary here), but Warner Bros. may be wasting a lot of time and money on its campaigns. If we’re to believe an AP story from yesterday, there’s already enough interest in the Batman Beginssequel coming from two separate directions: comic book fandom (”the magnitude of a comic-book franchise with an illustrious 70-year history”) and, of course, the cult of celebrity death (”arguably the biggest movie featuring a posthumous role in Hollywood history.”).
The article highlights a number of posthumous film releases, including those of James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause and Giant), Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), Will Rogers (Steamboat Round the Bend), Bruce Lee (Enter the Dragon), his son, Brandon Lee (The Crow), John Candy (Canadian Baconand Wagon’s East!), Natalie Wood (Brainstorm), Carole Lombard (To Be or Not to Be), Oliver Reed (Gladiator), Clark Gable (The Misfits) and Aaliyah, whoseQueen of the Damnedis implied to have only been successful on account of the singer/actress’ accidental demise. However, none of these performers, the article argues, had the benefit of having such a blockbuster swan song as a Batman movie (coupled with the Terry Gilliam movie, of course, but Ledger’s actual final film is considerably less anticipated and so may be less notable). So certainly Ledger will be winning the contest for Biggest Posthumous Box Office.
Anne Thompson points to the above picture documenting a “viral” Dark Knight marketing stunt described by a tipster thusly:
I saw these guys pull up on a corner, in a van right in the middle of downtown with big signs and bullhorns shouting to people to vote for Harvey Dent as D.A. The van was covered with Harvey Dent posters with Aaron Eckhart’s picture. Of course people had NO idea what they were talking about. They probably thought it was a real campaign.
How far in advance of the movie’s release do you think Warner Brothers will pull the correct strings in order to allow the Dark Knight campaign and the presidential campaign to merge? When can we expect Harvey Dent to endorse McCain? Or vice versa? Now that Warner Brothers is taking advantage of election season to sell their Batman sequel, at what point will real politicians start taking advantage of a new Batman sequel to sell themselves?
Esquire has published a piece of “reported fiction” called “The Last Days of Heath Ledger,” in which GOLF Magazine editor (!) Lisa Taddeo, writing in the voice of Ledger from beyond the grave, imagines how the actor spent his final days before overdosing on prescription medication in January. Inspired journalistic risk taking or tasteless garbage? Well, Glenn Kenny won’t honor this “loathsome stunt” with the compliment of a link. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wells, repeatedly justifying the story as an ancestor to Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, essentially accuses his commenters who find it distasteful of hating: “All bold ideas are tut-tutted by the tut-tutters.” Tut. Tut.
I tried to read the story in order to make up my own mind, but I couldn’t get past the third sentence––something about the idea of a writer imagining a dead celebrity talking about how often he masturbated before his accidental death got blocked by my puke filter, I guess. If you are of stronger constitution, you’ll find it here.
The New York Post has an image of one of two Joker action figures based on Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the villain in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. One version will come armed with a rocket launcher (!), the other with a plain old utilitarian knife. Mattel plans to release the toys in May.
Something strange happens when a talented actor’s life is cut short. There’s an oddly collective pang of grief and a permanent shift in how their work is viewed. We took on the challenge of talking about Heath Ledger through one of his less obvious works, A Knight’s Tale (2001). Karina investigates the meaning of “sex comedy” and how the obsolete censorship of the Hays Code influences Juno.
The Underwire points to Barackula, “a short political horror rock musical about young Barack Obama having to stave off a secret society of vampires at Harvard when he was inducted into presidency at the Harvard Law Review in 1990.” The ten minute film is not online yet, but we’ll be first in line for its debut.
Speaking musicals that plumb unlikely sources for kitsch, Chuck Palahniuk, David Fincher and Trent Reznor are apparently trying to put together a Broadway show based on Fight Club, to coincide with the film’s ten year anniversary in 2009. American Idol castoffs should start working out now, I guess…
Whoops! According to Andy Baio via Steve Bryant, the slow closing of the theatrical to DVD window, of which one benefit is supposedly the reduction of piracy, is actually making piracy worse.
Pitchfork’s offers a short review of Kurt Cobain: About A Son, sparked by news that the doc is soon coming to DVD. “So basically what I’m saying is if you want your childhood dreams shattered, go see About a Son. (Kidding.) But really, it’s an essential movie for Nirvana fans.”
The apartment that Heath Ledger died in is already on the market––and rent has been jacked up about 15%.
EVERY SENTENCE of Ed Gonzales’ review of The Hottie and the Nottie is too good, I can’t isolate just one. Well, maybe this one: “Fuck this movie.” THAT’s a pullquote!
This is probably the most horrifying celebrity glamour shot that I’ve ever seen. But this, this and this are all kind of amazing.
You knew this blog post was coming when Warner Brothers issued a say-nothing statement hours after Heath Ledger’s body was found last week. Now, a little over a week later, the scraps of news and speculative think pieces are flooding in; I read them and put the relevant information in a bullet-point list so that you wouldn’t have to.
Kim Masters at Slate says The Dark Knight hasn’t entered the ADR phase yet, meaning that if any of Ledger’s lines need re-recording, they’ll have to use a voice double. More interesting is the fact that Warner Brothers is spinning The Merchandising Issue as a moral one: if they don’t sell authorized t-shirts with Heath Ledger’s face on them, “The pirates would come out of the woodwork, and then it’s completely out of control.”
Chris Thilk says the third party companies who planned to partner with Warner Brothers on tie-ins (including Hersheys, who are planning some kind of Batman chocolate bar) were mostly not planning on using Joker imagery anyway, and will be able to continue with their capitalization plans unabated.
Borys Kit passes along word that WhySoSerious.com has been appended with a black ribbon. The creepy Joker images and Ledger soundbites otherwise remain intact.
Meanwhile, at Reel Pop, Steve Bryant reports that the “Why So Serious?” poster featuring an image of Ledger, which will likely be taken out of print, is selling for upwards of $70 on eBay. “Does the fact that I desperately want one make me soulless and insensitive?”
In a story published online last night, Variety’s Sharon Swart named the 15 films across both the Cannes Film Festival and the Cannes market that are expected to attract the most attention from buyers. At least one of the titles, Steve McQueen’s Hunger, has been bought in the hours since the story hit the website. At least one more, described as a “martial arts fantasy actioner, currently shooting in Romania…[starring] Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore and Japanese popstar Gackt,” sounds unspeakably (but not necessarily unsaleably) ridiculous.
Death sells. 
There is so much going on these days in the marketing of 
Esquire has 
