Task 1: Theory in Action
Task 2 Old Films For New
Task 3 Bums on Seats
The highly anticipated superhero movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming was released on 28th June 2017. This was rated age 12 on BBFC. This film is an adaptation of the Marvel comic books created by Stanley Martin Lieber (Otherwise known as Stan Lee). The movie was produced by Marvel Studios in order to increase the fan base and expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Targeting, Audience Research and Producer Response to Research:
The production company had to research what their audience wanted to see in a Spider-Man film. In addition, it needed to research and learn from any mistakes they had made in the past (eg. CGI) and not to follow characteristics of other less successful films (eg. The Amazing Spider-Man 2). Producers needed to be convinced that they had the right crew/team in place to make a movie that would appeal to their target audience.
The research conducted had to show the director and actors what the characters act like and what their backstories are (eg. Ben Parker’s murder, the spider bite etc.). They gathered information from the comics, other Spider-Man films and even interviewed the original creators of the superhero. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 starring Andrew Garfield achieved $709 million at the box office, even though Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of just 52%. Although The Amazing Spider-Man 2 appealed to much of the fanbase, ‘Homecoming’ starring Tom Holland, managed to achieve a much higher positive rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. This may be because there was a stronger backstory which made the plot much more credible.
Finally, producers changed director for this film and brought in Jon Watt. He had only directed two low budget films before but they liked what they saw and felt the range of camera shots, angles and movement would appeal to their target audience.
Publicity, Marketing and Distribution:
The company needed to think about the way the movie was shown and advertised. It was produced by The Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel Studios. The film was also promoted through video games such as Contest of Champions as they featured both his Stark enhanced and homemade suits and The Vulture. In addition, the homemade suit would be featured in the upcoming Spider-Man video game coming on the PlayStation 4. It is also synergised by pop vinyl action figures as the stock includes all the different Spider-Man looks (including normal Peter Parker and Spider-Man with the school trip jacket). Furthermore, ex-1989 Batman actor, Michael Keaton acts as the villain, ‘Vulture’, which brings Batman fans to this universe, therefore increasing the fanbase for Marvel. The Film is being streamed on Netflix and on release it was shown in IMAX in 2D and 3D. After the movie was released it hit the stores in normal DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K Ultra HD (Both Steelbook and normal cover). Spider-man Homecoming had a budget of $175,000,000 financed by Columbia Pictures Corporation, Marvel Pictures and Pascal Pictures. It was distributed by 47 distributors including Columbia Pictures Corporation however the biggest distributor was Sony Pictures.
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Awards and nominations for Spider-man Homecoming
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Saturn Award for best performance by a younger actor
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Winner: Tom Holland
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Nominee: Zendaya
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Saturn Award for best supporting actor
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Nominee: Michael Keaton
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Best Comic-to-Film Motion Picture
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Nominee: Spider-Man Homecoming
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Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor
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Nominee: Tom Holland
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O.F.T.A Film Award for Best Titles Sequence
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Nominee: Spider-Man Homecoming
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Teen Choice Awards for Choice Summer Movie
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Winner: Spider-Man Homecoming
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Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer Movie Star: Male
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Winner: Tom Holland
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Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer Movie Star: Female
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Winner: Zendaya
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Joe Barber Award for Best Portrayal of Washington, DC:
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Nominee: Spider-Man Homecoming
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These awards put together makes the film look better for those that have not seen it yet because they can see what the film has achieved.
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Comic Con
At the San Diego Comic Con, some of the cast surprised visitors by turning up unexpectedly to reveal footage of the new film. Producers knew that their target and secondary audience would be at Comic-Con so it was a great way to advertise.
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Online presence -Website
The official Spider-Man Homecoming website features partners such as; Snack Pack pudding, Hasbro, LEGO, Picture People, Regal Crown Club and Cookie Thins. It also shows ways to buy the DVDs including; 4K Ultra Blu-Ray, Mask Edition, Walmart Mashems Edition. Furthermore, the website also features the extras of the digital version such as deleted scenes and gag reels (bloopers or mistakes during production).
In addition, pieces of concept art were shared on the official Spider-man twitter account to show that Vulture would be in the new film. This was a clever way to advertise the fact because it made Spider-man fans who look at twitter feel as though they got the information first before it was shared on wider media.
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Trailers
There are three Spider-Man Homecoming trailers on social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube. The original teaser was premiered on 7th December 2016 showing parts of Peter’s Video log as he opens the suitcase. This part quickly cuts to Spider-Man flying over a police helicopter close to The Washington Monument. Some parts in the three trailers featured archive footage that did not make it into the final cut. They were well made and wet the audiences appetite to want to see more. Spider-Man Homecoming trailers were shown in cinemas before other movies of the same genre. This meant that producers were not wasting their money because they knew they were hitting their target audience.
Chat shows and interviews
In actor’s contracts there is often a clause which states that they must attend premiers of the film and give interviews. Chat shows are a great way to get the film noticed as the actors fanbase, fans of the characters and story, plus the studio and TV audience will all watch the show. Therefore, producers are hitting their target audience and possible gaining a secondary audience with people who like watching chat shows but don’t necessarily know anything about Spider-man.
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Magazines articles
Articles may be written on actors in the film and how they prepared for the role. Again, this advertises the upcoming movie and brings attention to it.
Spider-man Homecoming was advertised on the front cover of Total Film Magazine. The bright easily recognisable colours with large font not only attracted people to buy the magazine and read about the upcoming film but it also let non-readers of the magazine at least notice the front cover and see that the movie was coming.
Director Jon Watt was interviewed by the Independent Newspaper. This was interesting reading for fans and regular readers of the newspaper as it gave information about him and about the film.
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Product Placement and Sponsorship
Big corporations assist films by advertising them with their own products to boost both the companies and movies. For example, Audi hired Spider-Man’s main actor, Tom Holland to act in one of their advertisements where he is test driving the 2019 Audi A8 prototype.
Costume stores have had an increase in customers because of the Spider-Man Homecoming costumes and props. Toy shops also experienced this increase as they sold Spider-Man Homecoming action figures with remote control cars.
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Premiere
Premieres are a great way to hype up the film just before it is released. Spider-man Homecoming held its red carpet premiere in Los Angeles in June 2017. It was attended by all the stars, crew and production teams. Many fans turned up to meet the stars because they were so excited about the film.
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Reviews
Most of the target audience would go ahead and see the film as soon as it was released, even before a lot of reviews had even been published. However, reviews are particularly important for the secondary audience who is not sure whether to go and watch it or not. Also, if the reviews are good, even those people who may not have thought about going to see it may be persuaded.
Jon Watts, Director of Spider-Man Homecoming
Tom Holland (Spider-man) was one of the first stars to arrive on the red carpet.
Josh Greenstein, Kevin Feige, Sanford Panitch
Bibliography
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2250912/
http://collider.com/spider-man-homecoming-footage-description-comic-con-2016/
Task 4: Me and My Movies
Comic Inspired films have always entertained me. I first started watching them in 2008 when the first Iron Man film came out. I find them both inspiring and intriguing, for example, at the end of both ‘Avengers’ films, there were clips that lead up to ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. The clip from the second Avengers film included Thanos putting on the Infinity Gauntlet and saying, “I’ll do it myself”, which lead the audience to think about and anticipate what was going to happen next.
Most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films have been rated PG 13 or 15+ because they tend to put in some adult language and violence in the scripts, whereas films from other companies such as Fox who made The X-Men movies and Deadpool are sometimes rated R (or 18+) because they involve more violence and more swearing (Logan) along with some sexual scenes (Deadpool).
Active Spectatorship
Active Spectatorship is when, before seeing a movie, members of the audience do things such as reading reviews online on websites like Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb or Metacritic.
Before I get tickets to see a new film, I usually partake in active spectatorship so I know what the critics or the audiences think of the film.To do this I search for reviews on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. These sites take all the reviews people have made on the movie and summarizes them up to a percentage or a scale from one to ten. For example ‘Thor Ragnarok’ scored 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.9/10 on IMDb and this encouraged me and drew me further into watching the film knowing that I was likely to enjoy it. Active Spectatorship shows parts of Blumler and Katz and uses and Gratifications Theory. This is because it shows the connections between an audience and a movie through entertainment and communities of like-minded people.
Pleasure
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has always made the best films unlike it’s competition, The DC Extended Universe as they made less successful films (For example, Batman V Superman 2016). Marvel’s movies are fast paced and more exciting and include humor which gives me pleasure in watching them. I also like to come up with different theories of what could possibly happen in the next film according to the storylines (For example what happens to the people who got erased from Thanos’ snap in Avengers 3 2018). Until the next film comes out, the Marvel community remains in thought. This creates a strong sense of enigma and this is what builds the hype for future movies
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Frameworks of Interpretation.
The Marvel films have different yet similar narrative structures, They tend to sneak a new character into each phase along with the main Avengers (eg. Ant-Man 2015 and The Guardians of The Galaxy in Phase 2, Spider-Man and Black Panther in Phase 3 in 2016).
I think that most of the people who go and watch Marvel films know what to expect and interpret the movie in the same way, even though they may be from different backgrounds and social grades. Marvel movies are generally interpreted in the way that the director wanted them to be.
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Media Literacy
Although the movie failed, Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice had passable cinematography. The film used a dark cinematic filter with an intriguing shade of blue,and this brought out the grim emotions that the characters had in their heads. Avengers (2012) used different cinematic filters for different scenes, for example in the scene of Loki’s flashback, they used a similar filter. Whereas, in the invasion scenes a different filter was used to express change. The way the movie was shot with different camera angles, lighting and SFX helped the audience to understand the meaning of what they were seeing and also what might have been implied under the surface. For example, after watching DC’s Dark Knight Rises (2012) It really made me go away and analyse just what message the film was giving which was what might happen if there was a revolution in our time.
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Intertextuality
Some of the comic inspired movies can teach their audience about things that can occur in real life, for example how billionaires can get their money in a corrupt way (like Tony Stark selling weapons of mass destruction to certain organisations, or Bruce Wayne’s parents running criminal organisations). The movies also teach others that any kind of crime can be possible. But there are also normal things in these films like countries’ traditional features (Think Black Panther) or animal’s routines (Ant-Man and the upcoming 2018 Aquaman movie). Even life for teens or younger (Spider-Man Homecoming and the upcoming 2019 Shazam movie).
Effects
Each movie has its own effect on their audiences, for example Avengers Infinity War had a huge affect on its audience because it shook them up with the completely unexpected ending where a lot of their favourite characters died (Vision, Gamora, Star-Lord etc.) This in turn made them feel very confused because some of the characters that had died have sequels after Avengers 4 (Spider-Man, Guardians of The Galaxy etc.).
Fandom
Whenever a movie does well, there is bound to be a community of fans, others tend to call this a ‘fandom’ which is a mix of the words kingdom and fan. Usually there would be a Marvel fan base but other times it would be on a single character (eg. The Incredible Hulk fandom). An example of this is Wikia which is a website made by fans for fans of different communities (Marvel, DC etc.). Fans also watch live performances of their favourite cinematic universes such as 'Spider-Man Turn off The Dark' or 'Marvel Universe Live!' and also where Marvel or DC works with different companies (such as Broadway) to create a completely different way to watch their characters come to life.
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Social Networking
Social media is also another way for fans, such as myself, to find information on films or to follow the actors for updates and see behind the scenes. For example, before Logan came out, I would often check Hugh Jackman’s social media to see what was happening behind the scenes. Social networking also promotes the films by using advertisements which usually appear between each post.
Pre and Post Viewing Experiences
Positive pre-viewing experiences are extremely important because they build up hype and encourage potential audiences to go and watch the film. Producers spend a lot of money on trailers, posters and other advertising material in order to build up interest in the film. Before watching a Marvel or DC film I conduct research including checking social media, watching trailers and reviewing websites as I mentioned earlier so I know whether it is worth seeing or not.
After the seeing the movie, I review on it to let other people know what I thought. I try to be honest and write what I thought was good and what I felt could have been done better, for example cinematography, characters, story etc.
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Conditions of Reception
Different people enjoy watching different movies in different ways. Personally I prefer to watch films at the cinema in a place called VOX Cinemas 4DX or Theatre by Rhodes which makes the movie experience more enjoyable. There are three different ways of watching a movie; first as mentioned earlier, watching it in the cinema, second is buying it on DVD or Blu-Ray and third is streaming it online on sources such as Netflix. It is usually better for people to watch movies in cinemas because the screens are set in high quality and surround sound and also has the option of watching in 3D. However some people prefer to watch them at home on a smaller screen like a television or a laptop because of two reasons: first, there is no one else around to ruin it (For example When I watched Black Panther, a group of teenagers kept screaming, clapping and their phones were not silenced which definitely ruined the movie). And second, it could cost a lot of money to get tickets.
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Bibliography
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thor_ragnarok_2017
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3501632/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2250912/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/spider_man_homecoming/
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Marvel_Database#Database
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/library/marvel-movies/
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/library/dc-movies-on-netflix/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avengers_infinity_war
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/deadpool
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/iron_man
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/batman_v_superman_dawn_of_justice
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/superman_man_of_steel
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wonder_woman_2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMioMvkKYl4
https://www.marveluniverselive.com/#slide2
https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/spider-man-turn-off-the-dark-488485
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