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July 19, 2005
Comic. Con.
I never noticed that spelling style for the convention until sitting in a hall with 6000 people for four hours on Saturday.
One studio publicist compared the event's current standing to that of ShoWest. And there is something to that, except that this is a B-to-C event while ShoWest is a B-to-B event. (B= Business, C= Consumer) Particularly of note, ShoWest has shrunk in recent years while ComicCon just keeps getting bigger.
Why?
Well, in great part because it is a really cheap way to reach tens of thousands of the core demo for a lot of expensive studio product and to inspire grass roots enthusiasm. And the media follows the Pied Piper's tune, writing about the thumbs up/thumbs down reaction of The 6000 in Conference Room H.
It is not unlike advertising on the Super Bowl. It is way overpriced as a specific advertisement, but buying a minute for $2.5 million not only announces how serious you are about a particular movie, but it also leads to days and days of anticipation and analysis in all media, from old to new and everywhere in between.
The downside is, at least in perception, a problem like Hulk, where the early CG look drew scorn. But Hulk's $62 million opening, no matter how the film performed after that, says, "Fuck it!" Universal's plan won the race. They opened their movie and they opened it huge. Marketing does not a second weekend make.
And in a situation closer to ComicCon, there is Fantastic Four, which just opened to $56 million in spite of withering reviews and an endless array of attacks by geek Big Daddy Ain't It Cool News.
There is no real upside to ComicCon… and there is no real downside. This group of nearly 100,000 is going to show up for your big comic book movie. And if you are a strong marketer, they are going to show up for your well-sold small genre movie too.
To my eye, the clip package for the Underworld sequel looked as crappy as the original film. But the clips promised simulated sex from Kate Beckinsale and the side of her breast in another shot. Worth $10? Not for me. But Sony Screen Gems is no dummy. They serviced the base that showed up to see Kate & Co. (And I later heard that Kate and Len showed up sans publicist, stylist or bodyguard… must have gone through celeb rehab sometime in the last year.)
The first big hit of the weekend was Warner Bros. new Superman movie. Geeks standing ovated the clip package. Bryan Singer played it again… and they loved it even more.
Do they know much about the film? Nope. Do they know whether Brandon Routh can act his way out of a pair of tights? Nope. He did not attend. And once geek fever subsided a little, the question of why this guy didn't show up to stake his claim to the mantle started to burble about.
Singer's success and the double screening of the clip package created a truly Hollywood phenomenon. Len Wiseman, a couple of hours later, was the first egoiste to ask the crowd, "Want to see the preview again?" The audience reaction was muted, with more than a few "no"s screamed. But the package was shown again. A few hours later, the King Kong package, which people did want to see again, was replayed, only to run into technical difficulties. Doh!
The King Kong package, which was a message from Skinny Pete Jackson and an in-process clip of the Kong/T-rex fight, was a huge success. But even that event ended up with geek refraction as Adrian Brody and Naomi Watts got utterly dissed (outside of boys and girls telling Naomi how hot she is) by the Jack Black-crazed crowd that was anticipating a Tenacious D concert that would promote an in-production New Line movie in the following hour.
In any case…
I had this odd sense that the whole affair had become a bit too slick for my charm radar to go off as it has in the past. (The show has never been my cup of tea, really.) And I couldn't quite put my finger on it… until starting on this column.
No one really fails at ComicCon anymore. The line outside the room is either 3 blocks long or "only" 4000 people attend a room H session, but that is the degree of things… and that, like real movie marketing… is not about what happens in the room, but what is anticipated.
"It's really important that we come out here to see you, our real fans. The studio is always telling us how important all that other stuff is, but ComicCon is where it's really at!"
ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
The thing is, there really isn't anything like this particular marketing opportunity. And even if it costs a studio $200,000, including the time of the publicists and other staff involved, that is less than even a lame minute on prime time television… and the studios know they will reach the core market with their message. It's pretty much no lose. If you blow ComicCon, you have no one to blame but yourself. Even the crappiest genre film can cough up a 2 minute clip.
Will a single additional person line up to see King Kong next December because of ComicCon? No. Not one. Not an infant being carried at four months at the event. None.
Ghost Rider? A more borderline title… no Nic Cage… no character CG… lots of promises… ComicCon changed nothing… Sony's marketing will still have to turn the trick.
The Fountain? Great to know that Darren Aronofsky and Rachel Weisz are such generous, pleasant people who have a high tolerance for geekdom. But the movie still needs to be sold from the ground up.
What this event does do for Warners and Sony and Universal and Lions Gate and Disney/Walden and Paramount is what any industry convention does… it's a chance to schmooze the constituents. It's internet geek heaven. The studios still sweat the L.A. Times and the trades (NYT didn't attend this year) more than any website. But Quint's AICN ass was buttered, breaded and cleaned by tongue for five straight days. And you cold follow the parade of 20 or so sites/webmasters wandering from free food to free drinks after the heavy lifting in Room H was done each day.
Is there any news there? Only if you are on a slow news cycle or desperately seeking every movie tidbit before it hits the floor.
You can scrape together some stuff. Zathura looks like it will play pree-teen more than teen or full family. The genius of Peter Walsh Boyens Jackson is shown in Kong when beauty chooses the beast as her protector. Marlon Brando is working more now that he's dead than he did in the last decade of his life. Tenacious D has rabid fans, but they all may have fit into Room H on Saturday night. Len Wiseman spends more time on his hair than his wife does. A big truck wearing a giant black condom can be a release date announcement for a geek film. Hundreds of people will pay $120 for really cool light sabers that will surely be broken before the next ComicCon. Costume wearing is down… licensed figure businesses are up. David Cronenberg is funny. Kevin Smith and Jack Black should do a road picture together.
ComicCon is a win-win-win-win-win thing. Really, no one loses… and no one really can lose. The only real surprise is that studios haven't persuaded the organizers to do another event in January or February so they can get a second bite of the apple each year.
For me, it's kind of like being a plastic surgeon at a strippers' convention. Everything everyone else is enjoying looks like work to me. There are worse ways to go. And I certainly thank New Line for asking me to come down this year to moderate one of their events. Cronenberg and screenwriter Josh Olsen were both terrific and I got a chance to spend some time in the Gaslamp, visiting some of my favorite geeks and geek publicists.
As they used to say on Hee-Haw… Saaaaa-lute!
