This Week In Movie Posters: ‘Alien: Covenant’ Shows How It’s Done

This week in This Week In Posters we begin with this poster for Alien: Covenant, which really did everything right. It’s simple, legitimately scary, and best of all, it focuses on the timelessly terrifying alien design, reminding us that an Alien movie is coming with no need to include the title. Which in this case is one of those colon jobs that sounds like it could be a direct-to-DVD spinoff, which would only have us wondering things like “Who’s directing this one” and “Will it include any of the original cast?”

(Incidentally, Ridley Scott is directing and Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace are back, so expect future posters to start getting specific)

[all posters via IMPA]

In case you can’t read… uh… Chinese? this is a poster for Allied, the design of which makes you wonder how anyone thought it was a good idea to combine these two images. They’re obviously going for a Lawrence of Arabia thing with Brad Pitt in that outfit (that he wears for approximately 25 seconds of screen time during the opening credits), but as for the Marion Cotillard image… Did we really need the arch in there?

I like to imagine someone fought really hard for that. Another guy was probably like “No man, really, they’re together the whole movie, let’s just use an image of them in the same place” but this guy was like “Yeah, but the architecture, the ARCHITECTURE!” and threatened to resign until he got his way.

And here’s a cool poster for Assassin’s Creed, aka the Fibonacci Killer. Which looks like it took a few visual cues from The Expendables“circle of weapons” poster. That’s a good one to copy, though the “Destiny in your blood!” tagline kind of creeps me out. It’s weird to me how many action movies have this idea as a plot element even though the idea that your breeding controls your destiny is kind of, like, the foundation of all racism.

The B stands for “Bitcoin,” you see. Have you ever noticed that “bitcoin” is just one letter away from “bitchin” before? This is a first for me. Anyway, bitcoin. Remember that? Cool.

And I certainly know what this one is about, thanks to all that text up there. Call it successful, I’m at least medium intrigued. Not so much with the tagline on the bottom though. “An epic film based on true historical facts.”

That seems so redundant it feels defensive, like it’s refuting an argument no one made. “Hardee’s new Double Bacon Blumpkin Burger — it’s definitely made out of 100% actual real meat!”

Anyway, additional reading tells me that Bitter Harvest is about Holodomor and it comes from Roadside Attractions, so I’m not sure why the poster has that air of Mentos ad pan-foreign offness about it.

Look out for her giant face! I’m guessing this one’s about a lady who died and turned her family all dorky. I like that there’s a dog in it, but I actually had to Google it to see if it was a Hallmark Channel movie, which seems like a bad thing.

Hold on, Paul Reiser? Don’t you dare try to Trojan Horse Paul Reiser on me. I’m going to assume he voices the dog.

Here’s another super cheesy poster for The Disappointments Room, this time in Spanish. It really seems like they’re underselling the terror with that title, doesn’t it? “In space, no one can hear your mild disappointment.”

Here’s another poster for The Founder, selling Michael Keaton as the inventor of McDonald’s shrewd business model, which is mostly all you need. Something about that tan suit just screams “colonial businessman sent to exploit the natural resources” doesn’t it?

Oh man, you know you’re looking at an Oscar contender when the poster stars one of the most handsome, fit men in Hollywood as a paunchy bald dude in a bad suit. I am all over this one. McConaughey is going to be acting so hard.

Goon was awesome, so reminding us that it exists is really all you need. Is Sean William Scott going double denim because Canada?

I bet there’s going to be some equations drawn on windows in this. Oh and hey, Jim Parsons, fantastic. He’s Hollywood’s favorite nerdy genius. I like to imagine he’s really dumb in real life.

The cool thing about horror movies is that the posters transcend language barriers. What’s the slavic word for “creepy little kid?” Hey, is that Aaron Eckhart?

Here’s a new La La Land poster in whatever language this is. These posters don’t tell you much (not that you need much beyond “Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone might do it”), but they’re great at setting the mood.

Okay, I know I say a lot of posters are phallic, but it really does look like he’s posing with his giant boner here. Which wouldn’t be out of character for a Polynesian deity, actually.

There’ve been a lot of Rogue One posters, but this one really drives home the point that Ben Mendolsohn is playing a Nazi and Forest Whitaker is playing a wise space samurai, which is all I need.

Why is she so big? The scale on this one kind of makes it feel like Felicity Jones has parasites. Maybe that’s why she’s always wearing a big neck scarf, to keep the mites from going down her shirt.

Memba Darth Vader? Memba the Death Star? Ooh yeah, I memba.

Ha, her boobs have a crossboner. Anyway, yeah, this looks good, I’m out of things to say about pyramids of Star Wars characters. Release the damn movie already.

A rebellion built on Ho… a rebellion built on HP… a rebellion built on… Oh, “hope.” I see what you’re saying now. It’s only four letters, man, you couldn’t squeeze four letters on one line?

Liam Neeson’s skirt contains multitudes.

The title of this one is actually The Space Between Us, though the poster looks like it could be “The Staring Contest.”

This poster should have a quote from Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation: “The only idea more overused than serial killers is multiple personality.”

Also, how many more terrible bombs does M. Night Shyamalan have to make before he stops putting his name above the title?

Look at all of Kevin’s personalities. What I’m getting from this is that “Fragmentado” is a way cooler title than “Split.”

It’s cool that all you need to convey “douchey, out-of-work actor” is a vanity plate. This poster says more about vanity plates than anything else.

Hot damn, this looks like it could be the most dramatic golf movie since Bagger Vance. Also, how the f*ck is he going to swing a club in that coat? I couldn’t even pour cereal in that many clothes.

I really wish this poster for Wait Til Helen Comes had come sooner this week, because it’s pretty strong. Something about the creepy photography and yellow text elevates it above your usual creepy little kid movie.

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