10 Upcoming Movies Studios Don't Know How To Market

Spielberg's upcoming return to the genre of science-fiction should be one of the most hotly anticipated films of the year. But watching Universal attempt to market this is has been painful.

The story is, admittedly, a bit strange and hard to condense into a couple of minutes for a trailer. But rather than even worrying about that, Universal seems to think people will turn out in droves for the references.

The thing is, fans of the Iron Giant won't come to this film if you don't give them at least a basic understanding of what it is or why that character is in it. They've made the critical mistake of just throwing a barrage of pop-culture references and characters at the screen without ever giving the audience a reason to care about any of it.

The posters they've put out have also been fairly naff, including the one that makes the main character's leg look about twice as long as his body.

This kind of thing doesn't just sneak by a marketing team that actually cares.

To their credit, the latest trailer and poster for the film show them pushing in a distinctly different direction, actually selling the plot of the film first and foremost. However, several months into the marketing with only a few weeks left until release, it's far too little far too late.