Die Hard marketing sets up, trips over own stumbling blocks
It’s been 12 years since Bruce Willis last took to movie theater screens as do-it-his-own-way cop John McClane and 19 years since the original Die Hard debuted. The latest adventure, Live Free or Die Hard, comes amid a flurry of comic adaptations, sci-fi/fantasy and high concept period adventure films. That makes it, a more or less straight ahead action flick, kind of an anomaly in the summer of 2007. There are more coming in the form of The Bourne Identity and others, but they’ve all been pushed back into the latter half of the season.
That lack of pretense is being used by 20th Century Fox to differentiate the film from its neighbors at the cineplex. Fox is using the copy point, “No mask. No cape. No problem” to play up the fact that this is just an ordinary guy with no access to webs, magic or talking donkeys to help him out.
There are two problems the studio is facing in marketing the movie, at least to those in the know. For one, this latest installment will likely be rated PG-13, a lighter rating than the previous films’ R ratings. That means fans are now expecting to be disappointed by toned down language and violence, something that could depress the film’s box-office take as they avoid it out of fear of seeing a favorite no BS action hero effectively neutered.
The second, based on this report from CinemaBlend, is that the studio for some reason has decided to ignore the previous films in interviews and other press events. They’ve apparently asked journalists and stars to avoid references to the earlier installments and take the attitude that this is a reboot of the franchise. As CB notes, considering the star is the same, this isn’t a prequel and the character will likely address his age in the film this is a laughable notion on its face.
I get that studios are wary of making the film inaccessible to a younger audience that A) Can’t get into an R-rated film and B) May not have been born when Bruce Willis teamed with Samuel L. Jackson to track down Jeremy Irons. They think that 18 year olds rule the world. But here’s the thing: They don’t. If the studio had gone balls out with the movie and subsequent marketing to make sure and turn out the older folks such as myself (who is all of 32) the movie would at least be a hit with that target audience. But they’ve now got me and my contemporaries feeling the movie will be a let down and opt to relive the franchise’s earlier entries.
It’s just disappointing when a studio has an established and successful property and we have to watch them do everything they can to make sure this latest film isn’t as successful.
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