Cooper
Success of a
film such as star wars The Force Awakens depends as much upon marketing and
distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices
To what extent would you agree with this statement within the media
area you have studied
In the movie
industry, this statement is very true, as marketing, distribution and
production practices all contribute to a film's success, if one of these
aspects are missing the film will not be success full such as Disney's John
Carter which only barley made profit and was badly publicized so wasn't watched
by many and flopped at the box office costing 250mill and only making 284 mill
Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a huge
accomplishment because the distribution/marketing and production helped to lead
to a pretty impressive global box office figure of $206 billion. Which contains
a following $528 on the opening weekend The DVD/ Blu-Ray release earned in the
DVD charts $156 million which only added to its avatar matching figure which
helped its success, income and popularity. The film was also available to be
streamed on demand on sites such as Amazon Prime, Now TV and iTunes, the deals
of which were made meant that some of the money from purchasing and licensing
would go back the production company and studio, however many watched it from
illegal streaming websites which don’t let any money see the original creators
,The merchandising profits remain unattainable due to the fact that the numbers
are growing each and every day through dress up, Lego’s, action figures and
other cloths and toys.
Marketing started even before the film was close to
finishing little hints images and videos where leaked or posted on social media
by cast and crew giving the film lots of attention and ‘hype’ the most notable
was continues banter and twitter joke
between the film’s director JJ Abrams and another director Christopher Nolan,
which importantly contained a picture of the mid construction millennium falcon
which made fans go mad along then came pictures of the cast teaser trailers and
then the full blown trailer which everyone I knew had atlases seen twice this
great attention might lead to Distribution which played an important part of
Star Wars’ success, like it does is in many films, overall the film was shown
on well over 5,000 screens globally and this supports the idea that
distribution aided the film to become such a huge success. The fact that Disney
aided the films distribution is phenomenal a brand like Star wars and a company
like Disney is so well known and when they distributed a brand this big it only
increase its domination of the movie market instead of it being a film that is
spoken about in passing, it was something you could not really have escaped,
utilising the best of above and below the line but mainly below, every screen
or free space was plastered with posters and you would have thought
people probably became sick of it after a time but it worked and worked well,
by having literally everyone know about your new film no matter if it was a low
budget back garden tosh fest its still bound to have allotted of watchers.
Disney is known by cinemas and is trusted, the connections that they have
managed to acquire during their existence has managed to make their ideas of
distribution much more achievable and powerful. The ideas of the film being
distributed digitally managed to save the companies money because the process
is in fact cheaper and easier so in my opinion no matter how traditional,
original or good of an idea at the time shooting on film was it was a bad
decision and wasted them lots of money and possibly time, and then after their
hard work it to all be converted to digital any way is nearly laughable. The
film was aimed at audiences at all ages as most summer block busters are and
also ultimately was trying to encourage a younger audience to become engrossed
in the franchise. The film was four quadrants, mainstream and rated 12A which
allowed young viewers to see the film. Because the age of audience for the film
had been expanded this allows the film to make more profit short term and also
long term since they have kept the franchise alive it will possibly fill
another generating and probably another on top of that all adding to there
profit and this ties nicely with the idea of how marketing helps immensely with
profiting as well.
The film’s Production Practices also
added to its success. Firstly Star Wars received a massive budget of $300
Million, which is the second highest of all time, which allowed it to hire the creme
dela crème in the business, when it came to technology used in as well as crew.
The film also had large well-known names attached to it, with Bad Robot and
Lucas Film acting as its production companies, Disney as its distributor and JJ
Abrams as the film’s director, all of which the public would recognize as
makers of quality films. It also had the writing team of JJ Abrams, Lawrence
Kasdan and Michael Arndt, which are all highly experienced writers, one of them
even writing previously for the franchise, that would appeal to many fans of
the originals. It also had a talented cast full of both big and upcoming stars,
which would appeal to the general public, especially with big names like
Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Andy Serkis or Domhall Gleeson. Even
the upcoming stars were talented and would appeal to the more critical
audience, who would appreciate the use of new actors and fresh blood in the
industry. The film also received great special and visual effects, which are
some of the best in the business. These effects, which were mostly practical,
made the film stand out amongst the modern CGI reliant films, as it has a
grounded nature to it that makes the film more relatable and the CGI less
distracting from the film. These great production values also gave the film a
great critical reception, which could be a key part in swaying the general
public. These production values also play a massive role in a film’s success,
as it makes it look either professional or amateur and decides whether the
films good or not.
In conclusion, I would agree with
statement, as successful films rely as much upon marketing and distribution as
they do on production values. In the case of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this
is apparent as its success is mainly to its extensive marketing campaign as it
is to its wide distribution or even its excellent production values, and both
are essential. However in my opinion if I had to choose between two marketing
is more important since if you made the cure to cancer but didn’t tell any one
and kept it in a cave there is no point in making a cure so to fully conclude
marketing practices are essential to make the product such as a budget yet
marketing is more vital.
