Now this is how you build buzz. While I’m still not quite ready to go into a greater box office analysis of the upcoming summer movie season I have to give props to Paramount for mounting a steadily unfurling marketing campaign that has fired on all cylinders for their May tentpole movie. Of course, I’m talking about Star Trek. What did you expect? In hindsight the decision by Paramount brass to move the film out of its initial release date last Christmas day to the more competitive summer season now seems to have paid off in spades. While we still won’t know how well it will perform there’s no doubt that buzz is building in ways I have not seen since last year.

Flashback to the winter of 2007 and the prevailing box office prognostications were calling for Indiana Jones 4: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to easily win the May box office crown. Cinephiles were still clamouring for The Dark Knight to emerge as the #1 film of the summer but for Indy to come close. Then as the months rolled by into spring 2008 potential audience perception started to rapidly shift as surveys and box office pundits began to notice a huge surge in popularity in the superhero film Iron Man which had a strong marketing campaign that managed to capture the zeitgeist at precisely the right time. By the time the summer season opened it was clear that buzz was on Iron Man’s side bolstered obviously by the fact that the film actually delivered the goods. In the end Iron Man beat out Indy 4 to claim #2 for the summer and The Dark Knight did indeed reign supreme with a gargantuan domestic gross second to James Cameron’s epic romance, Titanic (without taking into account inflation).

Looking at the release schedule for this May it doesn’t initially look like it will equal last year as both Iron Man and Indy 4 opened in the same month both going on to gross over $300 million each. This time around we’re presented with a bevy of films all of which are cursed with significant stumbling blocks that could potentially torpedo the final gross. Regardless, the prevailing winds have initially placed strong bets on X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Night At The Museum 2 as being the two films that have the greatest upside. I’ll be posting my predictions for May in a few weeks but I must say that there’s a reason why I also wait so late till I release them – things change. As puerile and obvious as that might sound it’s something to hold true as events of the last few weeks have thought us.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine has hit turbulence like never before due to an ill-timed and highly illegal leak of an early cut of the film that has done nothing but fuel the Internet speculation that 20th Century Fox has a potentially less than desired film at hand. I for one hope they pull it off as I have no desire to watch any movie go up in flames but this bad news does not help in their quest to change audience perception. There’s no question the opening gross will be affected since at last count it has been downloaded over one million times so far which is a staggering number of potential customers lost. Still, it’s not all bad as most mainstream moviegoers will not have bothered to even notice that it was available to download but the risk is still there that the negative response from those who have seen it will taint others to not run out and see it right away as they wait for better word of mouth from friends or colleagues.

It also didn’t help Fox’s image when one of their freelance writers went and released a highly detailed review of the cut on Fox’s own website basically admitting that he watched the illegal copy. I have no idea what was going on in his mind but surely it was not firing on all cylinders as his blatant admission of guilt led Fox to basically lay him off and deleting his article from their website. This was the right move and although it sent a signal to the public that it was following the law it ended up as more egg on Fox’s face with some netizens even calling this whole debacle as being completely planned by Fox to drum up hype for the film. This is as absurd a theory as I’ve ever heard as this leak was clearly illegal not to mention that it has done nothing but exacerbate the initial view that the film was clearly not up to snuff. Hype or no hype, you don’t want negative observations or reviews to leak out so early before your premiere.

Juxtapose that with Paramount which has waged a brilliant marketing campaign to win over both diehard fans and the mainstream viewers with its Star Trek reboot. The trailers have been epic and well received highlighting not only the origin aspects of the story but the new cast and crew in an action adventure spectacle. Some fans might be turned off with the rock and roll commercials emphasizing the action but it has no doubt succeeded in educating the audience that something cool is coming soon -- just look at the newest TV ad that boldly proclaims, "This is not your father's Star Trek."

Then there’s the premiere. For all intents and purposes Paramount is rolling out Star Trek much like they’d do with a potential Oscar nominated film. No, I don’t suggest that Trek is gunning for the Best Picture statuette (although that would be cool!) but the way they are releasing it certainly parallels those smaller “serious” contenders. Simply put, if you want WOM (word of mouth) to spread while hedging your bet by being too aggressive and going straight to a wide release in thousands of cinemas the best tactic is to let it premiere in key cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Toronto on one of two screens and let audiences take over. Even though there aren’t many total people going to a few cinemas what you really intend is for them to latch onto the film and start the WOM chain slowly churning as they tell their friends, family and colleagues about how good it was. You’d be surprised just how quickly this process can work as these films begin to build steam in a snowball effect. As WOM spreads as to how great the film is it draws more and more people to the cinemas until it hits a critical moment when the company decides to release it in more cinemas.

You don’t have to look very far for examples of successful releases that went this route. Just look at last year’s Slumdog Millionaire. It opened last November 12, 2008 in only 10 theatres and managed to make $360,018. However, audiences loved and the rest is as they say history as it started on its slow climb up the charts as the company added more and more screens. At last check it was sitting at $140,751,191 domestic gross.

Of course, this strategy doesn’t work all the time but it’s almost never used for a big blockbuster summer release like Star Trek. Now I wish it were exactly following this trend but it’s not quite the same in that the film is not actually being released to the public to see but it is going to be rolling out to a whole spate of worldwide premieres (included to US forces in Kuwait this past weekend) over the coming weeks in order to build buzz and it all started with one of the biggest bait and switches I’ve had the opportunity to see or read about in some time.

Paramount announced that the film’s worldwide premiere was to be in Sydney Australia on Tuesday, April 7. The media gathered there along with the cast including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana and of course director J.J. Abrams. Across the globe at the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, Texas Paramount and a few co-hosts such as Harry Knowles of Aintitcool.com were getting prepared to mark the occasion with a special screening of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan with a special treat of showing 10 minutes of never seen footage from the new movie. On hand were the new film’s screenwriters Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman as well as producer Damon Lindelof who were there to present the movie to the audience.

The film began but after the opening credits the film reel basically died and melted and the movie stopped prompting the audience to get mildly upset. As they waited for the projector to be fixed Orci and Kurtzman got on stage in an effort to entertain the audience during the apparent faux pas but then from out of nowhere Leonard Nimoy popped up to massive applause and basically asked the crowd if they wanted to see more than 10 minutes of footage – like say, the entire movie perhaps? Yes, although all the dignitaries and media were in Sydney those lucky fans in Austin Texas got to watch the true world premiere a few hours before the showing in Australia. This had all been carefully staged and planned before hand and what appeared to be a botched screening of Star Trek 2 ended up being the World premiere of the new film.

The response after the credits rolled up? Near universal praise and adulation. Talk about getting your marketing right.

There’s a general rule of thumb that most moviergoers probably don’t pay attention to. If a company feels that a movie is not going to do well or ended up basically “sucking” they will do anything to prevent that knowledge leaking before it premieres. In a classic case of protecting themselves from harm they will not screen the movie for critics before it is released to the public. This is a sheer sign that the company knows it has a stinker on its hands and is in full damage control mode in order to achieve and gain as much money as it can before the nasty WOM sets in as initial moviegoers rip into the film and tell others to avoid it at all costs.

Conversely, a film company will never screen a movie long before its release date unless it is extremely confident that it has a major hit on its hands. With Star Trek premiering 31 days before its release date this is a telltale sign that Paramount is ecstatic about the film. It’s scheduled worldwide screenings that will take place between now and the release date are icing on the cake and reinforce the view that Paramount knows it has a quality title and is aggressively promoting it now in order to get the word out that the film is excellent.

This bait and switch certainly had a high built in risk factor. Star Trek 2 is regarded as the best Trek movie ever as well as being one of the best science fiction films of all time. To lure an audience that is there precisely to watch such a film and then switch it for the new one took a lot of gumption as there’s an inherent fear present that the new film will not come close to matching the old. Imagine going to see a newly restored print of Citizen Kane and instead getting it switched with Citizen Kane 2: Electric Boogaloo. Well, judging from the people who were present they have nothing to worry about as buzz is reaching a fevered pitch that can only help the film as it opens the week after Wolverine.

As buzz begins to build Paramount hopes to duplicate Iron Man’s success and although time will tell if it manages to get anywhere close to that film’s $ $318,412,101 domestic / $263,618,427 foreign gross here’s hoping J.J. Abrams’ reboot will usher in a new era of Trek movies. As for Paramount things are looking rosy with three of the biggest summer releases in Star Trek, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

© 2009 The Galactic Pillow