KNIGHT & DAY tracking badly, truly awful poster!

I'm not at all surprised by Anne Thompson's claim that Knight & Day, which opens in the U.S. next Wednesday and in the U.K. on July 2nd, is "tracking badly because it's not a pre-sold title and its two stars are not at their peak right now.". In all honesty, I think 20th Century Fox should be nervous. I mean kudos to them for taking a risk on a very expensive, high concept, original comedy screenplay in this era of sequels, remakes, etc, but the moment they added high-earners Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz to this thing, they really were jumping in with the sharks. It was all or nothing from that moment on. A risky comedy, that soon became an even riskier one. At this point it's either gonna be a huge hit, or it's gonna sink like the titanic. It's hard to see this one middling out... Recently I said that the only thing that could save Knight & Day was a romantic affair or the untimely death of one of it's two leads, which might have been a little harsh but I think there's a semblance of true there. If it's not one of those, it certainly won't be whatever Fox intern was given the job of putting together the promotional campaign to entice you to drop your £7 quid because that guy/girl should really be hung, drawn and quartered. Here's the latest photoshoppery disaster that Fox are trying to sell their $100 million movie with; I mean seriously... just what the hell is that? Are they aiming for a Tropic Thunder fake-movie poster, and just not quite getting there? Is that it? They missed their mark if that's true. Despite there not being a chance in hell of me seeing the movie on it's first few days of release (unless I get invited as press, which seems unlikely given the promotion I've given the film lately), I do have a slight interest and nagging affection for the Cruise/Diaz partnership and certainly it's director James Mangold may entice me in the latter stages of it's run. Hell, I adored 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line is just about the best of what you can expect from the tired music biopic genre. But I've said it before and I'll say it one last time here... I just can't get over the fact that Knight & Day feels like a 1997 release (in terms of concept, the look of the film and especially the marketing) that Fox are trying to sell in 2010 and it's just not working for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0cSz62nq9Y Cruise/Diaz are at least five years too old for this movie, and it's a dangerous move to advertise, without restraint, Cruise playing a role where he is asking audiences to sit through everything they have come to hate that's associated with the actor. Anne Thompson writes;

What the studio has failed to do is get the movie€™s concept into the ads. The marketing shows Tom Cruise the way we don€™t like him: over-charged with adrenaline. (The trailer is below.) James Mangold€™s movie, written by Patrick O€™Neill, boasts a clever high concept€”it pits masculine/dark/muscled action star Cruise against feminine/light/sexy comedienne Diaz. It€™s a meta-movie that deconstructs and riffs on its genre formulas. And Cruise and Diaz are a delightful combination. She more than holds her own with him€”they both know exactly what they are doing.

I would love to hear your thoughts on Knight & Day? Are you planning on seeing the movie on it's opening weekend, or are you part of my school of thinking that it just has disaster written all over it?