Movie Marketing is Hard! "Beowulf" and "300"

[Hello, Defamer readers.]

Another in our series, titled "Movie Marketing is Hard!", illustrating the lack of creativity amongst studio ad campaigns.
Zack Snyder's "300" made a lot of money. How much money, you ask? $450 million. Of course, if you asked the marketing geniuses at Paramount behind the "Beowulf" ad campaign, I'm sure they would have corrected me, and answered "$456,068,181, domestic plus global."

Why would the Paramount marketing team know this fact so intimately? Well, it's clear that they've been studying the ad campaign for "300" very carefully. Among many stylistic and clear similarities between each films' trailers, here are a few highlights:


Both trailers have the lead, bearded, warrior hero, in closeup, loudly proclaiming that "THIS! IS! SPARTA!", or, "I! AM! BEOWULF!"




Each trailer has an anachronistic guitar-riff-filled montage of violence, wrapped up with our warrior hero proclaiming something about "TONIGHT..."




And, most obviously, each trailer's graphics are rough, bold, blood red, and set against time-lapse clouds with lightning bursts.





Sure, there are some broad, thematic similarities to both pictures. But the "Beowulf" trailer is clearly trying to mimic the success of the "300" campaign, with no attempt at subtlety or, perhaps, advancing on the style that "300" created. There are several different ways to market a film. It takes a gargantuan lack of creativity to simply carbon-copy a previously successful campaign.

• "300" trailers at Apple.com
  
• "Beowulf" trailers at Apple.com