10 Upcoming Movies Studios Don't Know How To Market

One of the most important aspects of filmmaking these days is marketing. Between the sheer number of films that are released each weekend and the amount of content on streaming services such as Netflix or VOD, a movie's marketing has to really make a great first impression to rope viewers in.

Films that have great marketing, have the whole package. They have a poster that entices you, a social media presence that peaks your interest, a trailer that fully ropes you in, etc. They have so many great things going for them that they make you feel as if you can't possibly wait to see the film.

Films with bad marketing, on the other hand, are the equivalent of accidentally snorting prune juice out of your nose on a first date. They flub the initial meeting and then have to go into overdrive attempting to atone for their previous mistakes. But first impressions really do count and any film will have to work ten times as hard to ever earn back a viewer they lost.

These upcoming films have all gotten off on the wrong foot, in one sense or another, thanks to their studios. Maybe they're not sure how to sell them, or maybe they're trying to just bury them and move on. Regardless, the marketing has suffered as a result, as will the films.

Paramount has well and truly given up on this intellectual sci-fi film.

The studio opted to sell it as a standard, run-of-the-mill sci-fi actioner rather than taking into account what they actually had on their hands. They emphasized all of the most common aspects of the film rather than taking the time to show what made it different. Showing every shot of the film with Natalie Portman firing her gun? Check. Trying to make it look like a jump-scare horror film? Check.

To top it all off, they've thrown n some last minute additions to the trailers that showed all of the monsters it had to offer and practically spoiled every beat of the film. Plus, they sold off international distribution rights to Netflix to make a quick buck.

Paramount can and has done marketing for intellectual science fiction before, they simply chose not too. They turned 2016's equally brainy Arrival into a hit with a stellar marketing campaign. But it's been clear from the first shred of marketing that the studio simply saw Annihilation as something they had to get past.