Apr 20, 2009 07:30 AM
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Wed Feb 10
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With the release of Star Trek less than a month away, you may think that publicity for the movie is already at fever pitch. But prepared to get even more sick of the final frontier.
Still to come before the release of JJ Abrams' big summer movie are promotional tie-ins with ABC's Lost, Burger King and even Nokia, whose logo will apparently be appearing in the movie itself, according to the Hollywood Reporter. (Perhaps the communicators will rely on the Nokia network?) Paramount's LeeAnne Stables explained why the high-profile sellouts:
We wanted to make sure these were promotions with tonnage to relaunch the 'Trek' franchise... We like to have fewer partners with bigger programs.
But why promotional partners at all? Variety comes up with a potential reason: The movie isn't tracking particularly well with the audience it's supposed to:
[E]arly tracking shows that the film, which is toplined by Chris Pine as Kirk and "Heroes" star Zachary Quinto as Spock, is most vulnerable in the under-25 demo. According to a recent poll conducted by MovieTickets.com, 44% of under-25s intend to see "Star Trek" opening weekend. By contrast, 67% of under-25s intend to see "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" during its opening frame, which falls one week before "Star Trek."
Does this mean that the reboot and annoyingly bratty Kirk trailers aren't doing their job? Perhaps... but the studio is worried that the early peeks of the movie were just a little too eagerly going after... well, us:
"With the early teaser trailers, they had to be sensitive to old-school fans; there had to be a credibility check in the beginning of the campaign," says a marketing exec who has worked on a number of the studio's releases. "But as Paramount confronts the reality that they have a franchise that they want to build several films off of, they are turning to the mass audience. Now, you're seeing less spaceships and more of the film's young stars."
Finally, now I know the reason why the latest TV spot actually includes the words "This isn't your father's Star Trek." Although, I have to admit; if you're aiming at an under-25 audience, referencing an ad tagline from decades ago probably isn't the way to do it.
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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