Again, based on purely financial motives, which is a better usage of a studio's $2.4 million?
1) Financing one-fifth of the budget of Sideways.
2) Airing one commercial for Constantine on the Super Bowl.
Neither of these films has been seen by me, but I wonder if that one commercial a better use of a corporation's money than actually making another movie. It's true that if no one knew about a film, no one would see it, but it seems to me that although I have seen commercials for Sideways, I knew about it and wanted to see it before I saw them. It has earned nearly four times its budget so far according to IMDb.
Will that one (1) commercial pay for itself by swaying 350,000 people who wouldn't have otherwise seen the film to go see it? Probably not.
I suppose that this logic when applied to commercials for other products fails as well. Will Pepsi generate the sale of millions of bottles to justify the cost of airing its multiple ads? (Plus who knows how much it cost to actually get P. Diddy et al to be in the ads.) Not directly, but they do it to sell the brand, not the product. I don't remember seeing any Coke commericals. Pepsi has to do something to try to sway public image in the Cola War. But films are completely different animals. It's not like there will be this decade long struggle for control of the box office between Constantine and XXX: State of the Union. These films will come and go quickly, to be briefly resurrected when the special edition director's cut DVD will be released in September.
1) Financing one-fifth of the budget of Sideways.
2) Airing one commercial for Constantine on the Super Bowl.
Neither of these films has been seen by me, but I wonder if that one commercial a better use of a corporation's money than actually making another movie. It's true that if no one knew about a film, no one would see it, but it seems to me that although I have seen commercials for Sideways, I knew about it and wanted to see it before I saw them. It has earned nearly four times its budget so far according to IMDb.
Will that one (1) commercial pay for itself by swaying 350,000 people who wouldn't have otherwise seen the film to go see it? Probably not.
I suppose that this logic when applied to commercials for other products fails as well. Will Pepsi generate the sale of millions of bottles to justify the cost of airing its multiple ads? (Plus who knows how much it cost to actually get P. Diddy et al to be in the ads.) Not directly, but they do it to sell the brand, not the product. I don't remember seeing any Coke commericals. Pepsi has to do something to try to sway public image in the Cola War. But films are completely different animals. It's not like there will be this decade long struggle for control of the box office between Constantine and XXX: State of the Union. These films will come and go quickly, to be briefly resurrected when the special edition director's cut DVD will be released in September.
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