Welcome back to This Week In Posters, everyone’s favorite weekly poster feature on the internet. This is one of the best crops of posters I’ve seen since I started doing this feature. We begin with this new poster for the live-action Beauty and the Beast movie.
Disney’s first posters for Beauty and the Beast were nice, but cryptic (great teasers, basically). They’re laying more of their cards on the table with this one, and my, look at all the wonderful mustaches! Why, there’s Kevin Kline, and Ian McKellen, and hey, is that Stanley Tucci? How delightfu– GOD DAMMIT I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO TRY TO SNEAK JOSH GAD PAST ME AGAIN!
It seems like every damned party you’ll be strolling along, making small talk, having a grand old time when BOOM! Josh Gad pops out from behind the punch bowl to do some card tricks. Then you’re stuck there humoring him for 20 minutes, with his desperate fake laugh thing, while that girl you like gets chatted up by a handsome sailor. LEAVE ME ALONE, JOSH GAD, I JUST WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE!
My God, feast your eyes upon this glorious creation. Even in a week with a new Quintuple X poster I think this latest from Monster Trucks is still my favorite. They’re really owning it, aren’t they? I mean, I don’t know what it is they’re owning, but they’re definitely owning it. This poster really has everything. A monster. A truck. A handsome guy. A girl. A horse. A wheelchair. Some birds. Welding. A wrench. They couldn’t have fit an army guy back there, maybe a banana split? It’s like they wrote the script by picking random words out of the dictionary.
Oh hell yeah, I can’t wait to see this Catholic prayer action movie that’s super violent and totally not homoerotic. UNITED BY BLOOD. DIVIDED BY FEAR. HORNED UP FROM ALMOST KISSING. BIG HEARTS, DICKS FULL, KILL KILL KILL!
Ah yes, boy meets girl, girl’s disapproving father meets boy, comedy ensues — you know, that old story. Isn’t this just Why Him? with a different cast? I mean, a better cast, to be sure. I love Bryan Cranston, but when it comes to belittling hippies J.K. Simmons has no peer. Anyway, this movie looks dumb, but at least they lined up the faces with the names. A three-piece suit? He’ll never understand my banjo!
“In 1912, eight people were brutally murdered in their house. This is their house.”
OH MY GOD, THIS IS THE REAL MURDER HOUSE? A horror movie about a house where murders happened, why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? And based on a true story to boot? Well, I can see why this was greenlit, that’s for sure. Next you’ll tell me there’s a creepy little kid and some haunting music.
“Office Space meets Battle Royale.”
Well this gets points for selling a coherent concept, that’s for sure (also, how does We Got This Covered get quoted on every poster? has anyone ever actually read We Got This Covered? They’re like the Big Bang Theory of websites). And it’s sure to please the people who scream “This is just a ripoff of Battle Royale!” every time someone brings up The Hunger Games. Those people must be exhausted, I’m pretty sure 90% of sci-fi books involve a Battle Royale situation these days.
Wait, is she a mermaid? Like, The Lure, as in you were fishing with a lure and then you landed yourself a mermaid? Or is she not a mermaid, but some kind of slug creature, as in she’s the lure herself, and you’re the fish? If that’s the case, why the slug body? In any case, I find myself intrigued by these questions, though maybe it’s just the nipple poking out of the water.
I keep hearing how great Hidden Figures is, so I’m glad it finally has some posters that don’t make it look like a Hallmark movie.
These have the usual diagonal stuff, and the equations-on-windows clichés, but when you work them into a cool art deco, Soviet propaganda Kandinsky-style kind of a thing, it works.
That has to be the fewest lines you could use to draw Octavia Spencer and have it still totally look like Octavia Spencer. I also like that they just left the phrase “stagnation pressure in hydrants” on there. Sounds sexy.
James Franco playing a gay man? Has this ever been attempted?
Also, “His finest work since 127 Hours?” How dare you. It’s like The Green Hornet, Your Highness, The Broken Tower, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, About Cherry, Maladies, The Ice Man, Spring Breakers, Interior. Leather. Bar., Lovelace, Oz the Great and Powerful, As I Lay Dying, This is The End, Palo Alto, Child of God, Third Person, The Interview, True Story, and Yosemite meant nothing to you.
Here’s a new IMAX poster for La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, which takes the novel sales approach “What if the poster looked nothing like Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone?”
Also, what are those little upside down humps in the middle? I’m honestly asking, I really don’t know.
This is from the new crop of LEGO Batman character posters, which send up the Batman V Superman graffiti posters. I probably don’t need to post every single one for you to understand the concept. Like most things with LEGO Batman‘s marketing, it feels like they didn’t have to do much to make it feel catchy and clever. Effortless, like.
I like that it’s a graffiti representation of a LEGO representation of a live-action character based on a comic book drawing. You think there was any way for them to also make it clear that the person doing the graffiti was also a LEGO? Hard to pull off, probably.
Hey, is that Kevin Smith’s daughter?
Jesus, are all these characters really in the movie? This is going to be Spider-Man 3 all over again.
Mr. Freeze looks like the robot from Rogue One. You know the one, I’m not looking his name up.
As The Lovers proves, sometimes all it takes is a little clever framing. Clear concept, and they lined up the faces with the names. It feels like the universe has been listening!
All those glowing pull quotes had me intrigued, but it’s the protagonist preparing to unbutton her blouse that really ties the room together.
I always complain about the diagonal horizon line, but this is the way it was meant to be used. I don’t have to tilt my head sideways to enjoy the image, it’s got that same illusion of movement, and it actually makes sense, because she’s on a sideways motorcycle, you see. Also it’s hard to go wrong with cleavage and guns.
I actually thought this was for a The Ring special edition until I looked closer and then looked up Rings on IMDb. So… good, I guess? I remember this thing!
I like this After the Storm poster, graphically, even though it doesn’t tell me a whole lot beyond being a visual representation of the abstract title.
“More extreme in ImaxXx,” oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. I could not be more pumped for this movie, I’ll even overlook that it should’ve been more xXxtreme in ImaxXx.
I did a double take at this I Am Jane Doe movie when I realized it wasn’t Autopsy of Jane Doe. I assume this is the prequel to Autopsy of Jane Doe? JK, they’re unrelated, which might be even weirder. I feel like I’ve gone my entire life with no Jane Doe movies to be aware of and then BOOM! Two of ’em in the same year. What are the odds? Anyway, this poster is reasonably cool, graphically speaking, but are you sure you want to go with the weird sunset sky up there? People are going to think this is a remake of The Lovely Bones.