I’ve always been a big fan of Neil Gaiman’s work, so I’m extremely happy to see one of his comic novellas being made into a movie.  Maybe Sandman is too complicated to properly be made into a movie (although Gaiman seems to disagree with this) but Stardust is fairly self-contained.

But lately there is a lot of discussion over if Paramount is actually doing anything to sell the movie to the general public that might not know much about Gaiman.  Movie Marketing Madness goes into some details over Paramount’s marketing of the movie, I’ll give you the quick-and-dirty:

1. Paramount seems to be marketing the movie with a one-of-each approach: one poster, one trailer, and a fairly great website.
2. Paramount seems to be trying to keep the whole comic aspect of the movie a bit hush.  Gaiman’s name is barely visible and they are trying to play up the religious and fantasy aspects of the movie in hopes that church groups will hype the movie.
3. It doesn’t appear that Paramount knows what to do with the movie.

I personally think that keeping its source material a bit hush is kind of stupid on Paramount’s part.  Why not hype it?  Sure, it isn’t a superhero movie but neither were 300, Men in Black, Road to Perdition, Constantine, V for Vendetta, etc.  The general public seems to be kinder to comic book adaptations.

Deadline Hollywood Daily has a bit more negative view of the movie that makes similar points:

Even budgeted without marketing costs at $70 million (which sounds way low to me because of all the special effects excess), director Matthew Vaughn’s adventure romance fantasy is tracking horribly for its Friday opening in 2,300 theaters. “The over/under this weekend is at $15 million,” one of my box office gurus tells me. Yikes!

Once again, it doesn’t appear that Paramount knows what they are doing with the movie.  So, unless all the critics are dead wrong, Paramount is going to have a dud of a movie on their hands.  Another movie that appears to be great, but isn’t marketed properly.

[Via Newsarama & THE BEAT]