Forget Beth Cooper - I Love You, Marketing Failure!
Filed under: Comedy, Newsstand, Movie Marketing
Oh, Beth Cooper. She might have slayed readers under the pen of Larry Doyle, but she didn't gain any fans on the big screen. Here are three rants about the film's failings, and this certainly isn't a case of movie reviewers not getting it -- the Chris Columbus production couldn't even pull in its $18 million production budget (it grossed $13.5).But I Love You, Beth Cooper also failed in its great marketing scheme. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Twentieth Century Fox had big plans for the comedy. They wanted a viral media sensation that would pique curiosity and create a whole false world of copycat fans. See, they paid a high school valedictorian $1,800 to reveal a classmate crush during her graduation speech. Actually, first she was told to share a secret, but "then the next day they said it had to be about my crush. I was like, 'Oh that changes things a bit!'' She did as she was told, infuriated school officials, and the YouTube clip was practically ignored (garnering less than 2,000 views).
It seems that studios haven't yet learned about the fickle world of the Internet, and how audience reaction can never be succinctly measured. Share an opinion one day and it will be applauded and praised. Share it again later and you'll become the scourge of rampant fandom. It all depends on the wind.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-29-2009 @ 1:29PM
Cam said...
i've seen this around the news a lot already, which means the marketing failure itself is getting more publicity than the actual movie. but you may now be indirectly helping its dvd sales by publicizing the failure
...sad
Reply
7-30-2009 @ 2:18PM
kelz said...
Umm, no.
If the DVD were coming out tomorrow, then maybe, but by the time the DVD is released, this news (and its buzz) will be long gone off the radar.