‘Twilight’ was god awful – but fans don’t seem to care. The screenplay, makeup, and special effects were all kinds of cheesy. I didn’t want to miss the pop culture moment, so I caved and went to a matinee yesterday. The whole thing was, for lack of a better word, neutered. It needed a little more testosterone – and more vampire stuff. It took itself way too seriously and lacked subtlety – it was like killing a fly with a two-by-four. Thank god for the Dad character, he added some very much needed comic relief, and I actually thought the baseball scene was pretty fun.
But based on the blogs, it sounds like (for the most part) all is forgiven. Most fans were expecting a low budget flick anyway, and they continue to go to the theaters again and again to hopefully give Summit Entertainment enough money to make the next one bigger and better (and also to stare at super-dreamy Robert Pattinson for a few more hours). However, in my opinion, the budget doesn’t excuse the poor script and hokey over the top melodrama – oy vey. It’s possible to make a movie that is intended for one specific audience, but is watchable by all audiences. For example, once they added Chris Tucker to the Jackie Chan movies, everybody started enjoying them – not just boys obsessed with martial arts. Here’s my advice to Summit – from what I’ve read online, the fans are being pretty easy on you (that glitter effect alone, complete with totally random sparkle sound effect, should have converted everyone into haters) – fans are pumping tons of money into this movie in hopes that they will get a return on their investment in the sequels. In other words, you got a pass on this one because of budget, but if you fail to deliver in the next one, you’re probably going to have a mass exodus on your hands. Hell hath no fury like a Tweener (and her Mother) scorned.
Now that my inconsequential review is out of the way – I do want to compliment whoever handled the digital/online communication strategy. I don’t know if that was handled by Summit’s marketing dept or by an external agency – and I don’t really care enough to research it – but I think it’s an impressive example of how to successfully market to youth (and, in some cases, their parents) online. Is it weird that I’m a bigger fan of Twilight’s marketing department than the actual movie? They covered everything -social media, blogs, widgets, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, YouTube…the word of mouth was brilliant. I thought the use of widgets, which counted down everything from trailer sneak peaks to Bella’s period (joking, but I wouldn’t put it past them), was clever…and ubiquitous. The blogger outreach strategies were key – I think that’s why the bloggers are (for the most part) staying positive and focusing on the future rather than lamenting about the ho-hum piece of crap they were served. The partnership with MTV.com also helped to target the right audience and throw tweens into a complete hormonal frenzy on a weekly basis. They truly made it look like it was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel – seriously, bravo!!
Here’s another fun Twilight mash up from my favorite show ‘The Soup’:
Filed under: Betsy's Op-Eds | Tagged: Digital, Summit, Twilight
