The past two weekends have seen the release of two big, R-rated comedies, first Pineapple Express and then Tropic Thunder. Both featured stars who have, at least occasionally, dipped their toes into family friendly film waters and who have developed big followings across all age groups.
Both movies marketing campaigns also featured red-band trailers. Others and I have discussed the role of the red-band trailer in the campaigns for R-rated movies. They are great components for selling the movies to their adult audiences since, as I’ve said before, they are able to more accurately portray the movie as a whole. If a movie’s comedy or drama depends on the use of coarse language or violence then it’s better for the movie to be able to present those elements to the target audience in order to appear attractive.
Red-band trailers have come back into fashion in the last four or five years largely because of the rise of high-speed video online. On the Internet, studios can put into place safeguards, usually in the form of forms that require the inputting of name, birth-date and zip code, that are meant to keep those under 18 from seeing the trailer or other content. Invariably, though, these trailers wind up on YouTube or some other video sharing site – or directly on blogs – where there is no safeguard. This makes what’s supposed to be restricted content available to everywhere regardless of age. This is an obvious flaw in the process.
But the larger question about the advertising of R-rated films is: What advertising is appropriate?
Trailer remakes seem to be all the rage now — the Dark Knightwith kids clip I posted last month is getting a lot of mileage lately — and this week Indy Mogul premiered its parody of the full Pineapple Expresstrailer, for a fake movie titled “Banana Express.” Here’s the quick synopsis: a gorilla (Seth Rogen) and his banana dealer (James Franco) go on the run after the former witnesses a zookeeper murdering a fellow gorilla.
It may not be the funniest thing you see this week, but you have to give them credit for attempting to “ape” the Pineapple Express trailer shot for shot (Indy Mogul links to the original trailer and welcomes you to compare the two videos) and for including their own parody of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” titled “Banana Peels & Bombs”, which can be downloaded from Indymogul.com. Think you could do better? In 36 hours? I’m anxious to see other trailer remakes and parodies, so bring ‘em on.
Though Pineapple Express had a better per-screen average and walked away from its first five days with a more than adequate $40 million, it couldn’t block The Dark Knight from nabbing its fourth consecutive weekend box office title. Currently at $441 million, the Batman sequel is expected to overcome Star Wars as the number 2 domestic grosser of all time.
Entourage star Adrien Grenier is making a documentary about the 14 year-old paparazzo (unnamed in this Hollywood Reporter report) with whom he’s developed a friendship. Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, Eva Longoria, and Rosie O’Donnell will make appearances in the film, which is said to “interweave the relationship portrait with philosophical interviews in the style of Richard Linklater’s Waking Life.”
The drift away from R-rated horror is already starting to pay off for Lionsgate. Thanks to a combination of factors––home video successes like Rambo, theatrical moneymakers like The Forbidden Kingdom, the surge in hotness of TV titles Mad Men and Weeds––their total revenue was up 50% in the first fiscal quarter.
Rogen and Franco are hilarious in Pineapple Express, but the pothead to really watch out for is Danny McBride. Often relegated to brilliant and all-too-brief supporting roles, McBride stars in The Foot Fist Way, which is finally getting a gradual release thanks to Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. McBride’s magic lies in his ability to be a complete asshole 100% of the time on screen, while still charming the viewer. How does he do that?
ALSO, a call to Karina brings us back to the mid-twentieth century with some great television. What is it that makes AMC’s Mad Men so addictive? Need an excuse to not leave the house for the rest of the summer? Try TCM’s Summer Under the Stars.
Pineapple Express‘ Wednesday night opening broke two records: with its gross of $12.5 million, it had the best August Wednesday opening day ever. It has also now grossed more than every other film directed by David Gordon Green combined. His previous high grosser was All the Real Girls, which made about half a million dollars back in 2003. That’s right: in a single day, he beat his personal high score by a factor of 25. Of course, Pineapple also opened in 125 times as many theaters as Real Girls played in its widest release.
There’s really no way to calculate how much of that $12.5 million is due to the efforts of Green, and how much can be credited to the Judd Apatow brand name, to the combination of leads Seth Rogen and James Franco, or to the immortal Huey Lewis. So…cheers all around!
I’m glad I didn’t know Huey Lewis and the News were performing their Pineapple Express plot song on the Jimmy Kimmel show, because if I had, I might have actually forced myself to watch the Jimmy Kimmel show, and it wouldn’t have been worth it. The video evidence of the performance is above, and it’s hard to imagine a more cheerless gesture of synergy. After Huey’s half-assed opening hand claps, he seems to give up the game to his horn section. Maybe for good reason––he’s seemingly employed the finest pop-rock saxophonists alive––but I’m still going to say it’s for Huey Lewis and/or plot song completists only.
Torture pornographer Eli Roth is in talks “a baseball bat-swinging Nazi hunter” in Quentin Tarantino’s The Inglorious Bastards. Tarantino is apparently still talking to Brad Pitt about playing the lead role in the film, but nothing has been finalized.
Pineapple Express and the sequel to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsare opening today because their distributors want to “get a jump on a weekend full of Olympics coverage, which shifts into high gear Friday with the Opening Ceremony.” The “high end of expectations” would have David Gordon Green’s stoner comedy beating Batman at the box office. Emphasis on the “high.”
A theoretical SAG work stoppage be damned, Ang Lee will begin shootingTaking Woodstock this month, his ensemble film about the “aspiring interior designer” who offered up his parents hotel as the concert’s base of operation. Meanwhile, a new 40th anniversary Woodstock DVD is in the works, with at least an hour of concert footage added.
Prada has commissioned nine short films inspired by Prada, which Prada will then have edited into a feature about Prada, for viewing on the Prada website.
Comic-Con begins this week, not with a bang, but a blaze. Sony’s eagerly awaited next installment in the train that is Judd Apatow continues barreling down the track with multiple word of mouth screenings of Pineapple Express this week, including one in San Diego during the massive weekend of the Con. It’s worth trying to get into one just for the Huey Lewis and the News song that rolls over the end credits.
I was lucky enough to see the flick last night, and it was excellent on all counts. It’s over the top, violent, and very funny. And while Danny McBride’s Red character threatens to outfunny both Seth Rogen and James Franco, it’s Franco who brings us back the loveable movie stoner that we’ve missed so much.
People have been smoking pot in movies for decades now, but where Knocked Up just gave us useless layabouts who light up all the time, there’s actually a long line of lovable movie stoners who have handed off the torch to Franco, and he continues their tradition in glorious fashion. Here’s to those who helped pave the road.
Finally, a special July 4th treat: Nick Dawson points us to the website for Proud American, a film described thusly by its official synopsis, “While showing the nation’s spectacular landmarks and engineering marvels, historical sites and natural wonders, Proud American is really about the American people.” And it’s “presented by” Coca-Cola, MasterCard and Wal-Mart, so you know it has to be good!
This is it, the day we’ve been waiting for two full decades (or, at least, since we first heard it was happening back in December): the Huey Lewis plot song written specifically for the David Gordon Green-driected, Judd Apatow-produced stoner comedy Pineapple Express has hit the web! The Playlist first posted a clip of the song last night; today, Whitney at Pop Candy points to the full thing, available for streaming or download on MySpace.
It’s very much in classic Huey Lewis plot song mode, complete with gratuitous hand claps and sax solo. It’s not as directly narrative as, say, “Back in Time” (above), but it’s slightly more literally connected to the film than, like, “The Power of Love.” A sample from the chorus: “How did we get into this mess? Pineapple Express! Can’t deal with this stress! Totally gone, cause we’re on, Pineapple Express!” It is the best, and it is also totally the worst.
As we’ve discussed before, plot songs take the science of the source cue to a new level. After the jump, a brief, video-guided journey through plot song history. Let us know what we’ve left out.
On Saturday, Karina and I were discussing the upcoming Judd Apatow-produced comedy Pineapple Express, which I think is a waste of David Gordon Green’s directorial talent. Even more, I think it’s a waste of his writing talent, as it’s his first film where he’s not (credited as) one of the screenwriters. But, as Karina argued, a guy has to earn a paycheck now and again, and if him making this stoner comedy means I get to see more beautiful little films from Green in the future, then I should be happy for him and thankful to Apatow and Columbia Pictures. After all, great actors do this sort of thing all the time, so why shouldn’t it be okay for directors?
However, all too often a sellout film can leave a really bad taste in our mouths. Sometimes that one really commercial movie will harm a filmmaker’s career for a long time, whether because it’s a box office flop or because it ends up only being the first in a new, more-mainstream direction for the filmmaker (see John Woo, sort of). Hopefully Pineapple Express won’t be as bad as any of these famous disasters by otherwise great directors:
Alien Resurrection (1997) - It kind of seemed a dream come true that Jean-Pierre Jeunet (The City of Lost Children) would be wooed by Hollywood, especially for something as high-profile as the fourth Alien installment. But like many great foreign filmmakers, Jeunet was not nearly as great with an English-language script (nor is, apparently, Wong Kar-Wai). The movie looked really good, as had Jeunet’s French films, but overall the film was quite disappointing. It wasn’t necessarily Jeunet’s fault, but because he wasn’t fluent in English, it was likely difficult for him to communicate well with the actors and to see the faults of Joss Whedon’s script. Fortunately, Jeunet went on to make Amelie and has hopefully ignored the call of Hollywood ever since. …Read more
I don’t know what I’m happier about, the fact that “Bust-Ass” from All the Real Girlshas been getting a lot of supporting roles in big comedies (Hot Rod, The Heartbreak Kid, Pineapple Express, Drillbit Taylor, Tropic Thunder) or that he’s got the starring role in this little comedy, which ought to receive a decent theatrical run courtesy of Paramount Vantage. I’ll tell the truth, though; I hadn’t heard of The Foot Fist Wayuntil I was directed [via ComingSoon.net] to the movie’s new “restricted” trailer. Apparently it was quite popular when it screened at Sundance in 2007, and it so far has a rating of 9.7 stars out of 10 on its IMDb page (though only 29 people have rated it so far).
This trailer does something interesting that isn’t seen much in the world of movie marketing. It employs a sort of peer-recommendation that we’re used to seeing on book jackets. The trailer mentions the fact that it has been watched by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay at least 20 times, that it has been quoted by them and that they obsess over it. The only thing it’s missing is an actual appearance from the pair, or at least a direct statement from them. I feel like something less second-hand would be more effective.
Typically we see red-band trailers arrive online after the green-band trailers show up in theaters. But so far we’ve seen two R-rated promos for Pineapple Expressyet still no sign of any cleaner, theatrically distributed version. And after watching this second trailer (actually the first promo was more just a clip than an actual trailer), I’m doubting whether the film could even have a broader, theatrically appropriate ad. Is the MPAA alright with marketing stoner movies to general audiences?
I decided to seek out the original trailer for the comparable Up in Smoke, and it turns out the thing was only approved for “restricted audiences.” Of course that was long ago, when theaters could run such ads (and America was less uptight).However, more recently, both Harold and Kumar Go to White Castleand its upcoming sequel Escape from Guantanamo feature references to marijuana in their “approved for all audiences” trailers, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for Pineapple Express to do the same. Sure, Pineapple Express seems to be even more about getting high, in nearly every scene of the movie in fact, but surely the people at Sony can manage to focus primarily on that lame, derivative, accidental-witness-of-a-murder plot, while also concentrating on the fact that this is a Judd Apatow production, starring newly minted comedy star Seth Rogen and Spider-Man vet James Franco and directed by critically acclaimed filmmaker David Gordon Green.
I guess they do have a long time to figure that out. The movie doesn’t come out until August 8.
Though 
