Anyone catch the image in which diesel fuel costs $123/gallon? Whoa.
Wanted: Originality!
We do like talking about one-sheet design around here. And I’m a few days late with this one (I should really stop by Gus’ Movie Poster Addict more often). But today I saw the black & white One Sheet for Wanted featuring Angelina Jolie as ‘The Thinker’ with a fire-arm. What struck me at first glance was how similar this was to one of Tartan’s designs for the American release of Sympathy For Lady Vengeance. I do not believe the Lady Vengeance was ever used in the final marketing, as Tartan ultimately went with a different design (note Lady Vengeance was tragically unsuccessful at the Box Office, not even getting a quarter of a million dollars in ticket sales) although the image was put out publicly to get fan input on how to market the film.
So, is this a rip off, a homage, or a co-incidence?
I’m going with coincidence on this one but the thing I dislike about the poster is just how skinny her flipping arm is.
There is just something wrong looking about that arm. Usually I’m all for not manipulating photos to make them look better but in Jolie’s case I’d say they should actually do the reverse of usual and add some.
Comment by John Allison — April 30, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
Oooooooo I don’t think it’s coincidence. I have a feeling the marketing crew at Universal know exactly what they’re doing.
Comment by Marina Antunes — April 30, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
Yea, they photoshopped an open-eyed head onto the poster, it’s quite obviously bad and pretty embarassing if that is an official advertising One-Sheet for the film.
The overall design of the tan coloured poster is simply awful, it feels like 1989 John Woo-lite
Comment by Kurt Halfyard — April 30, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
Similar:
B&W
closeup
gun in hand
calm
Comment by Andrew James — April 30, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
I really did like the Bourne3 posters. Very elegant design and great use of black&white and crisp which is quite ironic considering the subject matter of the film is very much ‘grey and fuzzy’
Somewhere out there I had a statistic of how many movie posters and DVD/VHS boxes feature a gun on the cover. I seem to recall the number being over 40% (!!), I’ll look for confirmation on that…
Comment by Kurt Halfyard — April 30, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
The poster is actually in sepia, not B&W. We got a couple in earlier this week and I like the clean and simple look of it. I’d say it’s simply just a coincidence to the SFLV poster, especially since that wasn’t the marketing used her in the US.
Comment by Matt Gamble — April 30, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
its a girl with a gun shot from the side. i dont see a rip off, homage, OR coincidence.
Comment by Goon — April 30, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
Fair enough. Must just be me on this one.
I see your guys points, and Godard said all you need is a gun and a girl for a film…
Comment by Kurt — April 30, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
Didn’t Godard say that all you needed to make a film was to have a beautiful woman doing beautiful things in front of a camera? He could have said both I guess. Nutter.
Comment by Henrik — April 30, 2008 @ 8:40 pm