4. Fight Club - Public Service Announcements
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NWFXf2qjXeg To be fair, this is one brilliant marketing campaign that stands as a relic in spite of the studio's insistence that it really wasn't very good. We all know the famous bars of soap that were used to ingrain the Fight Club logo in our minds, but less-familiar are the superb public service announcements featuring Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden and Edward Norton's unnamed protagonist, shot by Fincher and designed to be placed in cinemas. However, Fox wasn't happy with the tone of the marketing - even if it perfectly reflected the film - presumably keener to manipulate audiences into seeing what they thought was a different film, and the only thing Fox and Fincher seem to agree on is that the film's marketing was a bust, because they couldn't agree. Still, for the sake of posterity, these brilliant ads live on through the power of YouTube, the best of which features Pitt announcing the locations of the cinema's emergency exits, before educating the audience about the sterile properties of urine. Brilliant.
Shaun Munro
Contributor
Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.
See more from
Shaun