Despite the Family Guy boxsets coming with a 15 certificate, and it's late-night UK slot on BBC3 we all know that the show has a lot of young teen fans that might not get all the jokes but love the characters and feel that little bit 'naughty' for watching it. Its reported that Fox were reluctant to get on board with Ted because of its necessary R rating- they realised that it would be damaging to box-office potential if much of the existing fan-base will be unable to see it at the cinema. But Universal Studios had no such pre-occupation and bought the film for distribution over 2 years ago. Its also likely that a lot of teenagers will download or pirate this film as they won't legally be able to watch it in cinemas or buy it stores. R-rated comedies do often have a comfortable time of it at the box office; Sony Pictures' Adam Sandler comedy Thats My Boy was released in the states last week and is on track to make a tidy profit, whilst the Hangover is the 3rd highest grossing R-rated movie of all time. So its quite possible that a vulgar, alcoholic teddy bear could make it into the top 10 or even top 5 for the weekly chart- my guess is that this will under-perform at the box-office but shine on DVD release.
Ted on Twitter
We all know how much social networking has changed the landscape of marketing, not just for films, music and games but for anything and everything that has ever been sold to us. Of course it is not unusual for the marketing bods at major studios to employ twitter handles to help promote their upcoming releases. You can follow Ted at @whattedsaid or join in the conversation with the #tedisreal hashtag. @Whattedsaid only tweets once or twice or day but there is always lots of chatter and excitement about the film through the hashtag including many references to the '**** you thunder' song from the trailer. You can also join in the fun on Facebook (
https://www.facebook.com/tedisreal ) by submitting a picture to the My Wild Night with Ted page and have a giggle at the endless photo-shopped images of the mischevious bear getting up to some naughty antics. I think this one is my fave so far: Looking in the mirror, I realize that I could be an awesome action movie star, because my range of expression is easily as limited as Clint Eastwood or Keanu Reeves. As well as keep the movie fresh in peoples mind by regularly appearing on their news feed, (and thereby fuelling their enthusiasm for the movie), social networks like Facebook and Twitter allow studios to keep a track of how potential audiences are responding to their film. The official Facebook page currently has over 600,000 likes; thats 600,000 people that will each take a friend (or maybe a few) to the cinema to see the movie, not to mention all those don't use Facebook or actively engage in movie marketing hype. So with Family Guy fans expecting big things from MacFarlanes career shift will Ted live up to the hype? Regardless of its commercial success will it become a cult comedy gem or turn into a forgettable experiment? I predict it will make moderate waves in the cinema-going pool and could quite possibly be one of the funniest mainstream films of the summer. But what do you think?......
