October 14, 2025 • 38 mins
We huddle up to dissect whether the marketing for the new movie HIM is a trick-play touchdown or a red zone fumble.
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#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #2025 #SpeakingHuman #Opinions #Reviews #BestOfList #HIM #JordanPeele
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SHOW NOTES
Get visuals, links and show notes from this episode at speakinghuman.com or at MOMApodcast.com.
#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #2025 #SpeakingHuman #Opinions #Reviews #BestOfList #HIM #JordanPeele
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/moma-movies-marketing--3296937/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make
sense of it all. This is movies and marketing. Next
Saturday Nights, where's sending you back.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
To the future?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day, Corbut now you're crazy, Dutch bastard.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What we've got here is failure.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
You mill gate, take them a ground where as fresh
all of pow for we might be as well with them.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I am an f B I.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Agent, Shad are you hyped?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I mean, how could I not be hyped? The game
coming up here? Scoreboard's ready for us, it's waiting. Got
this new thing going on we've never tried before mm hmmm,
which we always love a new novelty we do.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We like to try stuff, then decide that we didn't
like it, and we never do it again. Or you know,
once in a great great while we go, this is
cream cheese right here.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
We're gonna use this every time. Actually, what usually happens
is we say, while that was really good, we definitely
got to do that again, and then we never do
it again.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, because we forget. And that's mainly because you know,
we're older, we're losing some of our faculties, our mental faculties.
We're forgetting things. We forget the good things and the bad.
So that's a good thing too, and.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We just move on, you know, we move on to
the next thing. That's the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
It is. So today we're talking about the movie Him.
There's no surprise there because you know you obviously clicked
on the podcast, right, dear listener. So I have a
little trivia to get us started, as we've been doing
the whole year. We've been doing trivia, right, So shad,
I think this is gonna go in line with the
(02:01):
idea of the movie that we're talking about, Okay, because
we know Him is about football, right, seems like it
from what we know, Yeah, from what we know. So
the question I have for you is, do you know?
I know you know the answer to this? Do you
know which NFL quarterback once starred in a full length
(02:23):
feature film and was featured in major promotional campaign for
the movie? You know which quarterback? And do you know
which movie?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Was he the star of the movie all by himself
or was he just like you know, small part in
the movie.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
He was a small part.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
The one that comes to mind MM hmm, Brett Farv
something about Mary?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Is that what you're thinking? Yes, that is absolutely you
got it. No multiple choice on this, so.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
No multiple choice. I'm you didn't even have any multiple
choice prepared.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
No, and first attempt you got it.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, yeah, it came a flashed right in my brain.
I'm sure there's other movies where quarterbacks have showed up,
like The Longest Yard, there has to be a quarterback
pops up in there, But that's just the one that
came into my head. Very memorable.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, So, for those who don't remember, all the way
back to nineteen ninety eight, Brett Farv was featured in
that movie. He wasn't the lead, but he was in
the promotional materials and he played Cameron Diaz's love interest
who doesn't show up till kind of the end of
the movie because Ben Stiller sort of finds him and
(03:35):
reconnects them. Right. Interesting fact. I figured you'd get this
right away, But an interesting fact that I found out
was Brett Favre was not the first choice for this movie.
The directors, Peter and Bob Fairley, initially wanted Drew Bledsoe.
So if you know who Drew Bledsoe is if you're
listening to this episode, you probably know football, and you
(03:58):
probably will get that. But he was dealing with some
media attention. Drew Bledsoe was from a recent mashpit incident
and declined. The part was then offered to Steve Young,
who turned it down because of the movie's R rated nature.
He was concerned because I guess he thought that his
(04:19):
young Mormon fans wouldn't appreciate that seeing him in an
R rated movie. So weird, right, And so Brett Farve
got the role.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Do we know any more about this wash pit incident?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
No?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I want to look it up, but I didn't do
it for the episode, just because I thought I was
getting a little into the weeds. Probably if we talked about.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It, probably not. But yeah, it does make me curious.
I'm like, what went on there? The nineties? You know,
wash pit incidents were dime a dozen?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah you know. So, Yeah, NFL quarterback, real life NFL
quarterback in a movie.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's a great question. Something about Mary very memorable theat
metrical experience that movie when it came out, just played
the crowd going crazy with laughter, love them. He ate
it up with a spoon.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, had a lot of shocking moments. It had a
lot of stuff going on in that where you just
had never seen anything like it at that point.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, that's a good lead. I like that question because
it talks about you know, football and the movies, which
is what we're getting at today with the movie Him.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
There are a lot of people saying you could be
the next great quarterback. I can already see a name
cam running down a tonne of the crowd chan his name.
I hear you've been invited to train with legend Isaiah
White himself.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Here to a library.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I want to be the Goat.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Getting a US theatrical release on September nineteenth, twenty twenty five.
The official release that's Friday. We all know these movies
start on Thursday, which is today the day we're recording,
So this movie is real fresh coming out this weekend
as of this recording. Him Capital Letters Him is the
(06:06):
tale of a young athlete who descends into a world
of terror when he's invited to train with a legendary
champion whose charisma curdles into something darker. Great use of
the word curdles. The sports horror hybrid comes from a
script originally titled Goat also in all caps, you know,
(06:31):
greatest of All Time. That script made the Blacklist of
Best Unproduced Scripts in twenty twenty two, the same year
it was acquired by Jordan Peel's Monkey Paw Productions under
a deal with Universal Pictures went into production. The movie
We Got Now stars Marlon wains Tyreek Withers, who was
(06:53):
in the recent I Know What You Did Last Summer remake,
and Julia Fox and comes with a reported budget of
twenty seven million dollars. Him is pretty interesting in that
it blends genres in a way I don't quite remember
another movie doing so. We thought this would be a
good movie to take a look at the marketing and
(07:14):
talk about, which is what we're going to do today.
But we're going to do it, you know, kind of
in an interesting way. Do you want to tell the
people out there how we're going to do this?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Patrick, This is this is fun. We're going to talk
a little bit about each of the marketing efforts, if
you will, aspects of him, and we're going to talk
a little bit about it, and then we'll give each
one a score. Fumble equals bad, clearly right, you don't
want to do that. A field goal is you know
(07:47):
that was okay, it was decent.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You got something.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, and then a touchdown clearly clearly is good or great. Right,
it's a good thing for the team. Or maybe we
say awesome, that was awesome. Yeah you scored so fumble,
field goal, touchdown.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, pretty simple concept. We're going to see who gets
on the scoreboard, you know, with each of these marketing efforts,
how they did. So let's start with the teaser trailer
for him. What did you think of this one?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I liked the teaser trailer. I thought they did a
good job. It locked in a little over a minute.
I think it was like a minute, minute and a
half maybe, and it does a pretty good job of
sort of setting it up. It's like an alternate reality,
you know, or like a like a split personality, like
you see it. It seems normal, but then they flip
(08:38):
the script towards the end of that or the second
half of whatever it is we're on this thing with
flip the script, by the way, but you know they do,
and then it kind of you start to see that
there's something just not right about whatever's going on. Then
it moves into that horror territory. So the teaser trailer
does that pretty well.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So what are you giving it? Which you're you know ranking,
is it fumble, feel goal or touchdown?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I think getting the vibe of the movie across, it's
a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, I'm gonna agree with it. It was a touchdown
for me too. What I liked about it is it
kind of starts off like a Nike commercial.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You know, it's very much like that kind of sports imagery.
You know, you're seeing guys working hard doing these different workouts.
You're like, okay, this is very traditional in the imagery,
you know, that kind of stuff you're seeing in the
way it's cut, and then at about the midway point,
it kind of goes to hell, you know, and then
you really see that split into Okay, now we're jumping
(09:36):
into horror, and then we get this whole other thing
and we're like, oh, okay, this is something different. So
I like how they pulled that off, especially within you know.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
One minute. That's really the difficult part. And the teaser trailers,
you know, I mean they're a little probably longer than
like I remember, teaser trailers used to be like fifteen
to thirty seconds, and there's just no way you could
tell that whole story in that or that arc in
this such a short amount of time. It's tight editing.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, so double touchdown for the teaser trailer. Moving on
to the actual trailer. Yeah, what do you think of
this one? Now we're going full trailer this one?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
You know it's it's now you're you're getting about another
forty five seconds, right, So it's two thirty ish, tells
a little bit more of the story. I'll be honest,
I think I like the teaser a little bit better
in that it doesn't tell as much, like it gives
you just enough to like pique your interest. What's your whistle?
(10:32):
The full trailer, I think is it might be just
a little too much, but it's still good. I'm not
gonna say it's bad. It's just I feel like I
saw too much of the movie I want I wanted
a little bit more surprise from it, you know what
I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
As happens with it with a trailer sometimes where you're like,
that's a little much. I feel like I might have
seen too many of the good parts. Maybe, Yeah, back
it out just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And that's sad to say when you see it like
two minutes and thirty seconds should not be all the
good parts of the movie right out.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Of a well, when you're seeing like fast clips, you know,
and you're not seeing the whole scene, but you might
be saying, like a piece of each of them.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, I would still give it a touchdown, but it
might be sort of like just a touchdown without the
extra point.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Oh there you go. I was thinking they just like
kind of barely get over the line, you know what
I mean. Yeah, Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at too.
I was like, it's still a touchdown. It's pretty intriguing.
This is actually where the genesis of this episode in
some way was you kind of sharing this being like, hey,
you see this trailer and I had to check it out,
and it is It's pretty good when you watch it.
(11:39):
When you watch it in comparison with the teaser, I
do think the teaser is a little bit better, but
this one does give you some more It sets things
up a little bit more and you get definitely get
more of the like wild imagery. I also like the
use of Tupac in here. They do kind of like
a we talked about this remixes where you're kind of
like using the music and just remixing it a little bit,
(12:00):
which has become a common trailer thing. So they do
that pretty well in here. But you get a lot
of this imagery, you know, these different things. Some of
it's like football related in Blood. And then you start
to see like I don't know if you'd call them
creatures or hallucinations or what you want to call these
apparitions that you're seeing. You know, you get these kind
of flashes of all these different things that make you
(12:22):
kind of go, what the hell is actually going on here? Yeah,
so that makes it pretty pretty intriguing.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I'm really curious because, like, here's a great comparison. In
my mind, I think it reminds me a lot of
the feeling I got from the movie Blink.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
It does have that same kind of vibe. It seems
like like there's a mind altering drug feeling to it,
you know what I mean. It's like something's going on,
there's hallucinations to your point, or something is happening there.
What's real what's not real?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You know?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I think those psychological sort of horror thrillers are
really interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Blink's a movie I really like, but I like the
comparison you're making because Blink's won also where I had
the same feeling I have with this. I get the
setup mm hmm, and then I'm like, how are they
going to fill out the whole I have no idea
how they're going to fill out the whole movie with this, though,
you know where this where's this going to go beyond
this initial twenty minutes that I get?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And that's where I'm kind of excited, because, like Blink,
you know, they set it up, but then they also
it was kind of twisty and turny and it was interesting, right,
The whole thing kind of was interesting in the end.
It was like, oh, I see, okay, they had this
mysterious element to it, and I think this is what
they do really well, right in a trailer like this,
(13:38):
they set it up, you kind of see that it's
there's something not right, but there's a mystery there that
gets you intrigued enough to go see it in the theater.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So touchdowns all around so far on the trailers.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Mm hmmm. So we've got posters and artwork, which we've
got a series of them. You see them on the
show notes page of the podcast episode. There's a few
of them there and you could see there's this element
where two of them anyway have Marlon Wayans, and one
of them, he's standing over top of the shoulders of.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What's the young guy's name, Tyreek Withers.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, standing over his shoulders and it's got his hands
on his shoulders and hit something's going on with it.
So he's got all of like his super Bowl rings
or whatever those rings are. I'm assuming it's super Bowl.
But do they call it that in the movie, because
can they? I don't know if the NFL would could
doone this movie, I don't know. It might just be
like loosely implying.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's what it is, might be like the National Football Group.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah yeah, But he's got these rings on his fingers,
but his fingers are kind of like when you take
a closer look, they're kind of mangled, deformed type of thing.
And the same thing with the second poster, and he's
got again these rings on his fingers, and his fingers
are like mangled. And never Meet your Heroes is the
title in one of them. The other one Greatness demands Sacrifice,
(14:58):
which is like the tagline. The third is that justin
Tipping or no, not just in tipping Tyreek Withers, Tyreek Whithers.
I can't remember his name. He's standing there sort of
like with two footballs. There's like clouds and faceless cheerleaders
which are creepy in the background. In the clouds in
the background, it kind of looks like his arms, like
(15:20):
there's wings with the clouds, kind of like a Jesus pose. Right,
so very religious. It's not even undertones overtones religious overtones.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, I mean that one. I don't know is it everywhere? No,
well maybe, I guess there's some imagery in the trailers
and stuff like that too. I don't know if it's
in the other posters as much.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
But well, I mean there's no get around. I mean
the titles everywhere and him, I think that's religious overtone there.
I think the posters work really well. I like the
composition of the posters. I like that they have they
have like a unique simplicity to them, even though there's
you know, they're character driven. They're like about these two characters.
(16:04):
Clearly they're weird though, like they're definitely weird and ominous.
Like there's I mean, it's a horror movie, a psychological
horror movie or something of the sort. I struggle with
this one a little bit, but I would probably say
I'd give this a touchdown in in terms of like
(16:25):
poster artwork. You know, I don't know what it's doing
for the movie, but I think that they're well executed.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
What do you think I think I come in a
little under you. I'm a field goal. Yeah, there are
some interesting things here. There's some easter eggs like that
you mentioned that I really like, you know, like the
fingers and the faceless cheerleaders, these things like you have
to like really look at them to notice in some respect, Yeah,
you know, they're not right there, They're not super overt.
(16:53):
But I also think to like the glance in the
lobby at this, you know, the poster, like I think
of the first one, which is probablyably the main one,
with his hands on his shoulders and the rings. I'm like,
are people gonna get what this movie is from like
looking at that? Mm hmm, you know, will they know
it's like this sports horror hybrid. I don't know. I
don't know what people will like take from that. I
(17:15):
don't know if it gives you that much of a
sense of the movie. My favorite one is probably Tyreek Withers,
the main character in that Jesus pose. That one I
think is yeah, the most interesting, but I don't know
if it tells you, Like I just don't know if
the overall package is marketing wise, you know, gonna grab
people enough.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You're right if you see that in the uh in
the theater. I think the one, the last one is
probably my favorite two just because of that. But the
original one where he's standing and grasping his shoulders was
the one I saw, which led me to the trailer,
which then I sent to you because I was like
Marlon Wayns in a movie, Like I was more drawn
to the fact that I was like, that's Marlon Wayn's right,
(17:53):
Like outside of some shows and stuff like that, I
haven't seen him in anything lately. So and then it
turned out to be like a great trailer, right, and
then we started talking about it, so it.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Got you and there is something about it that makes
you want to take a closer look because you're like,
there seems like there's more going on here than at
first glance.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, And the tagline Greatness Demand Sacrifice is really good.
So with the title, with the tagline, with the imagery.
You get a sense it's like it's playing up your
what you expect to see versus what you're actually hearing
and seeing and reading. And you're like, this isn't following,
It's not in line with what I'm expecting from a
(18:36):
football movie.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, well it isn't It isn't that Like the tagline
like kind of points out the like, Oh, I'm seeing
these odd things, then I see this tagline, then it
might click into place.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Right Yeah, Yeah, which brings us to the tagline.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, which is our next category.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So what do you think of this? Tell me what
you think.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
First, this is a total touchdown for me. The Greatness
Demands sacrifice just totally works hits on the sports theme,
but kind of alludes to the horror. I think this
like to go to another sport entirely knocks it out
of the park. You know. This is one of those
things you see and you're like, ah, they just got it.
They know what kind of movie they are, and they
like found something that's like perfect, and you're like a
(19:17):
kind of jealous that they came up with something that's
that good.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Really, not even knowing the full premise of the movie,
you get it. So I think obviously, this one's a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, that's a double touchdown for us. Let's go to
another aspect. This is a big one here. We often
talk about this the title of the movie as both
you know, part of the art and part of the marketing.
What do you think of him?
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I'm kind of torn on this. The very first thing
that came to my mind was, this is very, very
in line with what you expect from a Jordan Peele movie.
For whatever reason, you know, like us, all of his
movie titles seem like they follow this us.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, they're very short, succinct to the point, there's no
Killers of the Flower Moon, you know, like it's not
so you kind of go in thinking, oh, this is
going to be a movie that sort of turns things
around on you a little bit. Just going from the
title itself though, like without any preconceived notions. I think
(20:24):
about how football and in sports like people will say,
you know, I'm giving it up to Him, which is
him if you're awake and alive in this world. You know,
people say that and they're referencing God right or the Lord,
the Lord right, and they always give thanks to him.
So I'm thinking that's where that stems from. And so
(20:47):
there's this element to that. But does that tell you
what the movie is about. I can't say that it does,
but you know that there's like something you can't just
put your finger on, and maybe that's the beauty of it.
I don't know. It's so hard to pin it down.
Like I like it. I like the title. But then
if you go, Okay, well this is the title, say
(21:09):
what the movie is m I mean, does it always
have to I don't know, you know what I mean.
I have a feeling it's going to make total sense
when you see it, especially given the tagline. Right, you're
gonna go mmmm him yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want
to say this is like I went for a field
goal and then faked and then made a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
This is an interesting one because I feel like, from
a you know, a movie artistic standpoint, maybe once I
even see it, I will think higher of it. But
I could see there's something there that's like him, Like
you're talking about referring to the Lord but also referring
to him this this great football player, you know, So
there's like this parallel there that could be pretty interesting.
(21:53):
But I just can't get away from my initial reaction,
and when I think a lot of people's initial reactions
were probably i'd be like, this is a pretty generic,
unmemorable title, you know, when you just kind of see
it off the cuff, not that it has to tell
you about the movie, but it has to kind of
grab you in some way, and him just doesn't really
do that. I think that's probably a fumble in that sense,
(22:16):
maybe even a fumble where the other team grabs the
ball and scores, because I just don't know if this
is a kind of title that's gonna get people. I
don't know that Goat was a better title, but maybe
I do think there's probably a better title that works
on dual levels, like the tagline does. I don't know
what that is, but I think I feel like there's
(22:37):
something out there that could have worked like that. This one,
I just feel like is too. It just doesn't have
anything that sinks. And and again I might see the
movie and be like, no, that's the absolute perfect title.
It couldn't have been anything else when I see it
now ahead of seeing the movie, which is kind of
what's important. You know, one of those titles where you're like, oh,
(22:58):
that just seems like something I want to see, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, it doesn't have that feel. Yeah, And that's the
point I was kind of going for, is that you
know the title before seeing the movie versus after, it
can weigh the outcome of how you feel about it,
or it can affect the outcome. So fumble.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, I'm gonna call it a fumble. So this is
we diverge here.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Okay. I get what you're saying. I really do, and
I get what you're saying. All right, Okay, So how
about the viral and the social.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
The viral and the social to me was mostly you know,
from what I've seen. I obviously didn't go through every
post or everything they've ever done, but I checked it out.
They're on Instagram, they're on Facebook, they're on x, they're
on TikTok. They've got their basic you know, movie site,
find a showtime. So that's a feel goal to me.
Most of it it exists. I didn't see a lot
(23:50):
that blows me away. I thought their TikTok was pretty good.
They had like some cool eye catching clips. Obviously, there's
a lot of visual imagery from this movie that like
grabs you, so to put that in like two to
four second clips and that can loop and stuff like that.
That's pretty grabbing. So I think they've done that pretty well.
They have some good stuff on there, but all in all,
(24:12):
I was like, I didn't see anything that I was like, Ooh,
they're doing some really cool stuff on here.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, there's nothing groundbreaking that I saw at all. Like
the website, the social media. I mean like they're doing
the things. They're there, they're in those spaces.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, they're checking the boxes.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
From my vantage point, i'd be like fumble field goal.
But then I look at like, I think this movie's
getting a lot of traction because of those channels, specifically
social channels. Because like we were talking about before we
hopped on to record, I mean, my son, people are
like going to see it tonight opening night. That's not
(24:53):
very common. And the audience that was going to see
it I thought was interesting. The front that he was
going with didn't seem like they were the ones who
would go see this movie, you know, if that makes
any sense. So there's something going on there that's attracting
younger audiences anyway, So.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Maybe what they're doing is working. They've been doing a
lot of general ad spending. It seems like, I know,
they've been playing like a lot of commercials during NFL games,
which is, you know, makes sense considering the the football
tie in this movie, and I think some you know,
billboard and stuff like traditional what you would call advertising too.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, so I'd give it a field goal, you know,
even though in my personal opinion, I'm like, yeah, you know,
they didn't do anything like really cool or unique like
Blair Witch.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah. We're always looking for something that we're like, oh,
that's that's interesting, that's really that's really blown things up
or gone viral.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, like weapons, Right, they're doing stuff like weird stuff
that people are like talking about, you know, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, which kind of takes us to our next category,
which is the online conversation the buzz. What sense do
you get to that? Where would you place that? At
this point as the movie's opening up, what.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I've been seeing the buzz is kind of like focused
on Jordan Peele's reputation, so I think a lot of
people are expecting him to, you know, follow a similar formula,
and I think that some of the secrecy of it,
which they've done a really good job of, has helped
with that right, like the mystery, we go back to
the mystery of what the heck is going on in
(26:33):
this movie. I haven't seen any spoilers, which is really
good overall, though, I think there have been, you know,
some good buzz conversations that are happening about it, and
they're mixed. You know, there are some people who are like,
you know, given some critical takes on it and the
religious side of it, the like religious overtones. I think
(26:54):
that gets some positive and negative reviews, you know, because
there's always gonna be people who are like, it's blasphemy.
I don't know how you would escape that with a
movie like this, because it seems like there's a big
part of that movie that is very heavy handed, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, so where did you Where'd you land? What's your score?
I guess what are you putting on the scoreboard?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
This one? I would say touchdown because I think this
is what caused you know, this other element which I
was talking about before with with the social and stuff,
where like younger audiences, kids who are in the nineteen
twenty twenty one college range, are going to see it,
you know, So there's there's some buzz, there's some conversations
happening there because of it, getting them in the seats,
(27:42):
getting them in the seats.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I'm glad you mentioned the Jordan Peel ness of this
whole thing. We should have brought this up. I'm surprised
we didn't. With the trailers and the movie posters, this is,
you know, being marketed and sold essentially like a Jordan
Peel movie. This is not. You know, Jordan Peel didn't
write or direct this movie, but they're very much selling
it like his name first, like he did. Yeah, produced
(28:06):
by Jordan Peele's at the top of the poster, you know,
it's his name is big in all the trailers. You're
gonna see it everywhere, and you're gonna people are gonna think, oh,
this is Jordan Peele's newest movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I did too. When I said it to you, I
was like, oh, this is Jordan Peele cause I didn't
even read the fine print. You know, he's a producer
on the movie. Yeah, yeah, not the director, not the writer.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, it seems like you know, it's in this as
you mentioned, in the style of his movie. It's named
in the style of his movies.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah, and his.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Name's up at the top there's no reason you wouldn't
think that, and I think they want you to think that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
But a producer, right, I mean, they have a lot
of influence on a movie and his name being tied
to it. They know that he's got a level of cred.
Why wouldn't you use that to your advantage? I guess
he believes in the project enough.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, I mean it's from his production company. You know,
he's out there on the marketing. He's like promoting this movie,
so you see him out there. He is definitely involved
in it, probably more than most producers are in movies.
I you know, when it comes to the online conversation,
I'm I'm a little more lukewarm. I see it as
more like a field goal, maybe even verging on a
(29:20):
fumble in some ways. I look at some of like
the top reddit threads in there, A lot of them
are along the lines of is anyone excited for this movie?
That causes me some concern? You know, Reading the reddit
room a little bit, I'm like, do I have some
should I be worried a little bit? Here? It doesn't
seem like people are through the roof necessarily, So I'm
(29:42):
gonna call this one a field goal. But yeah, I
have some trepidation.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, I've seen some like people have wondered how you know,
the mainstream audiences, especially football fans, will receive the film's
critique of the beloved sport because there's all those there's
all those elements to it, right, there's the religious, there's
the the actual football critique. Because you could see the
(30:09):
suffering and the sacrifice and like in a very real,
bloody gory way. It seems like so mm hmm. Yeah,
it'd be interesting to see how that plays out. But
I you know, I do agree with you to some extent,
especially if it's Reddit. If it's on Reddit, you know,
someone said it, right, it's my new I'm coining that phrase.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, it's good. It's good. Do you have any other
any other things you want to talk about? Pr merch
product times. I don't really have any others. I don't
know if you have any.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Here's something that I came across today, Okay, an email
from Regal Crown Club, Regal Cinemas. Yeah, they sent you know,
the ritual begins. I don't know if this is a
tie in, but is it a popcorn bucket?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
No?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But they have something called juiced j U I c
ed juiced spiked lemonade that you can get apparently in
the theater must be twenty one with valid ID. Please
drink responsibly. I think this is kind of interesting. In
the email, you know, it's him juice spike lemonade. There's
(31:14):
like a glass with ice in it and something else.
I can't really tell, but it looks like there's a
syringe with like red blood yeah, yeah, or something football's
got blood coming down it and juice is in all red.
Kind of like that hymn font interesting product tie in
or whatever that is. I don't spiked lemonade kind of cool.
(31:35):
I like that they're doing something different. It's not a
popcorn bucket.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, I'm all for any of that stuff. I love
the lobby tie in merch promo materials. Like even just
walking up to see a movie and seeing that other
stuff for other movies gets me hyped up.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, especially when it's unique. Yeah you know what I mean, Like, oh,
I haven't seen them try that yet. Just do a
little do a little something different. I think people would
dig that.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, I you know, I like that. I'll give that
a touchdown.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, that was the only other thing I saw recently,
and I mean it's something outside of like the norm.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So all in all, you know, you look at the scoreboard,
I think him did pretty well a mixed a mixed
bag in some ways, but I think it's generally on
the positive.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, it could quickly turn or maybe this is like
a new cult classic that everybody's talking about after they
see it, they're like, man, that was great. And you
don't know because, like I said, since we're recording this
on the eve of Him's release, how about we talk
a little bit about what we predict this is going
to do at the box office. We've done this before.
(32:40):
We don't have any clue at this point. Will it
be a w or now? Will it win or lose?
And will it be uh something that people talk about
in favorable light about Jordan Peele and Monkey Paul or
will they be like, oh that was the worst.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
It's a good question. So this we like to do
from time to time, or you know, predict the domestic,
predict the international box office. See who gets closer. Of course,
price is right rules.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
You can't go over right right right, right, right right right.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
I'll head to first my domestic This is gonna be
lower than years. I don't know, but I'm going thirty two.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Million, oh okay, total like domestic.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, total domestic. I think it's going to open at
like fourteen, and I think it's gonna do okay, but
I don't think it's going to be like a huge runaway.
I think it's just gonna do average. I'm not sure
it's gonna get one the football people, and I think
the non football people might be turned off by the football.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
M okay.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
So I think it's gonna be just kind of a
mediocre you know, it's going to like make mostly its
money back a little bit, but that's about it.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
So what about are we doing international? What do you
think any Yeah, we'll do international too. And then I
see international and I'm like, well, does anybody care about
American football internationally? So I'm going to go I'll go
fifty million there.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
So thirty two and fifty okay, Yeah, that's uh yeah,
that's is that significantly lower than yours.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's it's significantly lower. So what is that total?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Well, thirty two domestic, fifty million is the total international
which includes the domestic.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Oh that includes domestic.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So it's only going to make eighteen
million international. Okay, you're thinking this is wild, you think
it's way you must think that's way too low because
you're asking questions.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
No, I think you're I think you're well. Yeah, So
here's my take is that I think that domestic it's
probably going to do about one hundred million.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Whoa, Okay, that's much higher.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, so my domestic is way higher. In your international,
I'll say it's going to probably do like forty, So
i'd say total why to be like one forty?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
So yeah, very different takes.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, you know, because I think if you're just even
looking historically, if it goes in line with Candy Man,
you're going to be dead on Because Candy Man, which
was just Monkey Paul producing that one, did sixty two
domestic and sixteen international, so total seventy seven. So you're
(35:24):
like right there, you know what I mean. But if
you go with any of the other movies that Jordan
now did have a big part in, those ones did
considerably more. I could see what you're saying. Though. The
argument is could it appealed to these audiences, which might
it might alienate them?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, I could split. We have different takes here. I'm
kind of more of a I'm closer to a fumble,
you're closer to a touchdown.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, I'd say it's probably going to be at least
a field goal. But I don't know. We'll see Marlon
wains like if this thing. I think at the very
least he might see some awards for this role.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Oh, that would be interesting.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, I would like to see that. Actually, I mean,
being from the time period when Marlon ways sort of
came through as a comedic actor, you know, and stuff
like I would I would really like to see him
get awards for like a pretty dramatic role. I think
that would be pretty cool. I think that would set
it up too, to have some legs beyond the box office.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
I'd like to see that. I'm interested in the movie
in general. I definitely it's on my want to see list.
Will I get to in the theater? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Well, hopefully you got a little bit out of this.
Maybe you're interested in seeing it. Let us know what
you think feedback at Speaking human dot com. We'd love
to hear if you're planning on seeing Marlon Wayns in
a critical critical role. I don't.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I don't know if it's that career changing, potential Oscar winning.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah performance, Oh yeah, potential Oscar winning. I'm gonna nominate
him based on his trailer Best Trailer Performance by a
Lead Actor Lead Supporting Actor. I don't know that would
actually be great. Could we do that the Trailer Awards,
(37:15):
the Trailer Awards, Yeah, we should.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That's not a bad idea. Let's save that for a
moment at the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Absolutely, I think that's gonna be a that's gonna be
a winner winner.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
He could at least win Best Actor with mangled Fingers
on a poster. But that wouldn't be a trailer award.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
No, it would be the poster based on a trailer award.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Well, we hope you like this episode of MoMA. That's it,
and that's all for movies and marketing until next time.
Let's fade to black. I would be back.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
He's coming.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
I hide high High
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make
sense of it all. This is movies and marketing. Next
Saturday Nights, where's sending you back.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
To the future?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day, Corbut now you're crazy, Dutch bastard.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What we've got here is failure.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
You mill gate, take them a ground where as fresh
all of pow for we might be as well with them.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I am an f B I.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Agent, Shad are you hyped?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I mean, how could I not be hyped? The game
coming up here? Scoreboard's ready for us, it's waiting. Got
this new thing going on we've never tried before mm hmmm,
which we always love a new novelty we do.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We like to try stuff, then decide that we didn't
like it, and we never do it again. Or you know,
once in a great great while we go, this is
cream cheese right here.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
We're gonna use this every time. Actually, what usually happens
is we say, while that was really good, we definitely
got to do that again, and then we never do
it again.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, because we forget. And that's mainly because you know,
we're older, we're losing some of our faculties, our mental faculties.
We're forgetting things. We forget the good things and the bad.
So that's a good thing too, and.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We just move on, you know, we move on to
the next thing. That's the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
It is. So today we're talking about the movie Him.
There's no surprise there because you know you obviously clicked
on the podcast, right, dear listener. So I have a
little trivia to get us started, as we've been doing
the whole year. We've been doing trivia, right, So shad,
I think this is gonna go in line with the
(02:01):
idea of the movie that we're talking about, Okay, because
we know Him is about football, right, seems like it
from what we know, Yeah, from what we know. So
the question I have for you is, do you know?
I know you know the answer to this? Do you
know which NFL quarterback once starred in a full length
(02:23):
feature film and was featured in major promotional campaign for
the movie? You know which quarterback? And do you know
which movie?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Was he the star of the movie all by himself
or was he just like you know, small part in
the movie.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
He was a small part.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
The one that comes to mind MM hmm, Brett Farv
something about Mary?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Is that what you're thinking? Yes, that is absolutely you
got it. No multiple choice on this, so.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
No multiple choice. I'm you didn't even have any multiple
choice prepared.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
No, and first attempt you got it.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, yeah, it came a flashed right in my brain.
I'm sure there's other movies where quarterbacks have showed up,
like The Longest Yard, there has to be a quarterback
pops up in there, But that's just the one that
came into my head. Very memorable.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, So, for those who don't remember, all the way
back to nineteen ninety eight, Brett Farv was featured in
that movie. He wasn't the lead, but he was in
the promotional materials and he played Cameron Diaz's love interest
who doesn't show up till kind of the end of
the movie because Ben Stiller sort of finds him and
(03:35):
reconnects them. Right. Interesting fact. I figured you'd get this
right away, But an interesting fact that I found out
was Brett Favre was not the first choice for this movie.
The directors, Peter and Bob Fairley, initially wanted Drew Bledsoe.
So if you know who Drew Bledsoe is if you're
listening to this episode, you probably know football, and you
(03:58):
probably will get that. But he was dealing with some
media attention. Drew Bledsoe was from a recent mashpit incident
and declined. The part was then offered to Steve Young,
who turned it down because of the movie's R rated nature.
He was concerned because I guess he thought that his
(04:19):
young Mormon fans wouldn't appreciate that seeing him in an
R rated movie. So weird, right, And so Brett Farve
got the role.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Do we know any more about this wash pit incident?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
No?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I want to look it up, but I didn't do
it for the episode, just because I thought I was
getting a little into the weeds. Probably if we talked about.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It, probably not. But yeah, it does make me curious.
I'm like, what went on there? The nineties? You know,
wash pit incidents were dime a dozen?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah you know. So, Yeah, NFL quarterback, real life NFL
quarterback in a movie.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's a great question. Something about Mary very memorable theat
metrical experience that movie when it came out, just played
the crowd going crazy with laughter, love them. He ate
it up with a spoon.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, had a lot of shocking moments. It had a
lot of stuff going on in that where you just
had never seen anything like it at that point.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, that's a good lead. I like that question because
it talks about you know, football and the movies, which
is what we're getting at today with the movie Him.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
There are a lot of people saying you could be
the next great quarterback. I can already see a name
cam running down a tonne of the crowd chan his name.
I hear you've been invited to train with legend Isaiah
White himself.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Here to a library.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I want to be the Goat.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Getting a US theatrical release on September nineteenth, twenty twenty five.
The official release that's Friday. We all know these movies
start on Thursday, which is today the day we're recording,
So this movie is real fresh coming out this weekend
as of this recording. Him Capital Letters Him is the
(06:06):
tale of a young athlete who descends into a world
of terror when he's invited to train with a legendary
champion whose charisma curdles into something darker. Great use of
the word curdles. The sports horror hybrid comes from a
script originally titled Goat also in all caps, you know,
(06:31):
greatest of All Time. That script made the Blacklist of
Best Unproduced Scripts in twenty twenty two, the same year
it was acquired by Jordan Peel's Monkey Paw Productions under
a deal with Universal Pictures went into production. The movie
We Got Now stars Marlon wains Tyreek Withers, who was
(06:53):
in the recent I Know What You Did Last Summer remake,
and Julia Fox and comes with a reported budget of
twenty seven million dollars. Him is pretty interesting in that
it blends genres in a way I don't quite remember
another movie doing so. We thought this would be a
good movie to take a look at the marketing and
(07:14):
talk about, which is what we're going to do today.
But we're going to do it, you know, kind of
in an interesting way. Do you want to tell the
people out there how we're going to do this?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Patrick, This is this is fun. We're going to talk
a little bit about each of the marketing efforts, if
you will, aspects of him, and we're going to talk
a little bit about it, and then we'll give each
one a score. Fumble equals bad, clearly right, you don't
want to do that. A field goal is you know
(07:47):
that was okay, it was decent.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You got something.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, and then a touchdown clearly clearly is good or great. Right,
it's a good thing for the team. Or maybe we
say awesome, that was awesome. Yeah you scored so fumble,
field goal, touchdown.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, pretty simple concept. We're going to see who gets
on the scoreboard, you know, with each of these marketing efforts,
how they did. So let's start with the teaser trailer
for him. What did you think of this one?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I liked the teaser trailer. I thought they did a
good job. It locked in a little over a minute.
I think it was like a minute, minute and a
half maybe, and it does a pretty good job of
sort of setting it up. It's like an alternate reality,
you know, or like a like a split personality, like
you see it. It seems normal, but then they flip
(08:38):
the script towards the end of that or the second
half of whatever it is we're on this thing with
flip the script, by the way, but you know they do,
and then it kind of you start to see that
there's something just not right about whatever's going on. Then
it moves into that horror territory. So the teaser trailer
does that pretty well.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So what are you giving it? Which you're you know ranking,
is it fumble, feel goal or touchdown?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I think getting the vibe of the movie across, it's
a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, I'm gonna agree with it. It was a touchdown
for me too. What I liked about it is it
kind of starts off like a Nike commercial.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You know, it's very much like that kind of sports imagery.
You know, you're seeing guys working hard doing these different workouts.
You're like, okay, this is very traditional in the imagery,
you know, that kind of stuff you're seeing in the
way it's cut, and then at about the midway point,
it kind of goes to hell, you know, and then
you really see that split into Okay, now we're jumping
(09:36):
into horror, and then we get this whole other thing
and we're like, oh, okay, this is something different. So
I like how they pulled that off, especially within you know.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
One minute. That's really the difficult part. And the teaser trailers,
you know, I mean they're a little probably longer than
like I remember, teaser trailers used to be like fifteen
to thirty seconds, and there's just no way you could
tell that whole story in that or that arc in
this such a short amount of time. It's tight editing.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, so double touchdown for the teaser trailer. Moving on
to the actual trailer. Yeah, what do you think of
this one? Now we're going full trailer this one?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
You know it's it's now you're you're getting about another
forty five seconds, right, So it's two thirty ish, tells
a little bit more of the story. I'll be honest,
I think I like the teaser a little bit better
in that it doesn't tell as much, like it gives
you just enough to like pique your interest. What's your whistle?
(10:32):
The full trailer, I think is it might be just
a little too much, but it's still good. I'm not
gonna say it's bad. It's just I feel like I
saw too much of the movie I want I wanted
a little bit more surprise from it, you know what
I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
As happens with it with a trailer sometimes where you're like,
that's a little much. I feel like I might have
seen too many of the good parts. Maybe, Yeah, back
it out just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And that's sad to say when you see it like
two minutes and thirty seconds should not be all the
good parts of the movie right out.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Of a well, when you're seeing like fast clips, you know,
and you're not seeing the whole scene, but you might
be saying, like a piece of each of them.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, I would still give it a touchdown, but it
might be sort of like just a touchdown without the
extra point.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Oh there you go. I was thinking they just like
kind of barely get over the line, you know what
I mean. Yeah, Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at too.
I was like, it's still a touchdown. It's pretty intriguing.
This is actually where the genesis of this episode in
some way was you kind of sharing this being like, hey,
you see this trailer and I had to check it out,
and it is It's pretty good when you watch it.
(11:39):
When you watch it in comparison with the teaser, I
do think the teaser is a little bit better, but
this one does give you some more It sets things
up a little bit more and you get definitely get
more of the like wild imagery. I also like the
use of Tupac in here. They do kind of like
a we talked about this remixes where you're kind of
like using the music and just remixing it a little bit,
(12:00):
which has become a common trailer thing. So they do
that pretty well in here. But you get a lot
of this imagery, you know, these different things. Some of
it's like football related in Blood. And then you start
to see like I don't know if you'd call them
creatures or hallucinations or what you want to call these
apparitions that you're seeing. You know, you get these kind
of flashes of all these different things that make you
(12:22):
kind of go, what the hell is actually going on here? Yeah,
so that makes it pretty pretty intriguing.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I'm really curious because, like, here's a great comparison. In
my mind, I think it reminds me a lot of
the feeling I got from the movie Blink.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
It does have that same kind of vibe. It seems
like like there's a mind altering drug feeling to it,
you know what I mean. It's like something's going on,
there's hallucinations to your point, or something is happening there.
What's real what's not real?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You know?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I think those psychological sort of horror thrillers are
really interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Blink's a movie I really like, but I like the
comparison you're making because Blink's won also where I had
the same feeling I have with this. I get the
setup mm hmm, and then I'm like, how are they
going to fill out the whole I have no idea
how they're going to fill out the whole movie with this, though,
you know where this where's this going to go beyond
this initial twenty minutes that I get?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And that's where I'm kind of excited, because, like Blink,
you know, they set it up, but then they also
it was kind of twisty and turny and it was interesting, right,
The whole thing kind of was interesting in the end.
It was like, oh, I see, okay, they had this
mysterious element to it, and I think this is what
they do really well, right in a trailer like this,
(13:38):
they set it up, you kind of see that it's
there's something not right, but there's a mystery there that
gets you intrigued enough to go see it in the theater.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So touchdowns all around so far on the trailers.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Mm hmmm. So we've got posters and artwork, which we've
got a series of them. You see them on the
show notes page of the podcast episode. There's a few
of them there and you could see there's this element
where two of them anyway have Marlon Wayans, and one
of them, he's standing over top of the shoulders of.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What's the young guy's name, Tyreek Withers.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, standing over his shoulders and it's got his hands
on his shoulders and hit something's going on with it.
So he's got all of like his super Bowl rings
or whatever those rings are. I'm assuming it's super Bowl.
But do they call it that in the movie, because
can they? I don't know if the NFL would could
doone this movie, I don't know. It might just be
like loosely implying.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's what it is, might be like the National Football Group.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah yeah, But he's got these rings on his fingers,
but his fingers are kind of like when you take
a closer look, they're kind of mangled, deformed type of thing.
And the same thing with the second poster, and he's
got again these rings on his fingers, and his fingers
are like mangled. And never Meet your Heroes is the
title in one of them. The other one Greatness demands Sacrifice,
(14:58):
which is like the tagline. The third is that justin
Tipping or no, not just in tipping Tyreek Withers, Tyreek Whithers.
I can't remember his name. He's standing there sort of
like with two footballs. There's like clouds and faceless cheerleaders
which are creepy in the background. In the clouds in
the background, it kind of looks like his arms, like
(15:20):
there's wings with the clouds, kind of like a Jesus pose. Right,
so very religious. It's not even undertones overtones religious overtones.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, I mean that one. I don't know is it everywhere? No,
well maybe, I guess there's some imagery in the trailers
and stuff like that too. I don't know if it's
in the other posters as much.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
But well, I mean there's no get around. I mean
the titles everywhere and him, I think that's religious overtone there.
I think the posters work really well. I like the
composition of the posters. I like that they have they
have like a unique simplicity to them, even though there's
you know, they're character driven. They're like about these two characters.
(16:04):
Clearly they're weird though, like they're definitely weird and ominous.
Like there's I mean, it's a horror movie, a psychological
horror movie or something of the sort. I struggle with
this one a little bit, but I would probably say
I'd give this a touchdown in in terms of like
(16:25):
poster artwork. You know, I don't know what it's doing
for the movie, but I think that they're well executed.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
What do you think I think I come in a
little under you. I'm a field goal. Yeah, there are
some interesting things here. There's some easter eggs like that
you mentioned that I really like, you know, like the
fingers and the faceless cheerleaders, these things like you have
to like really look at them to notice in some respect, Yeah,
you know, they're not right there, They're not super overt.
(16:53):
But I also think to like the glance in the
lobby at this, you know, the poster, like I think
of the first one, which is probablyably the main one,
with his hands on his shoulders and the rings. I'm like,
are people gonna get what this movie is from like
looking at that? Mm hmm, you know, will they know
it's like this sports horror hybrid. I don't know. I
don't know what people will like take from that. I
(17:15):
don't know if it gives you that much of a
sense of the movie. My favorite one is probably Tyreek Withers,
the main character in that Jesus pose. That one I
think is yeah, the most interesting, but I don't know
if it tells you, Like I just don't know if
the overall package is marketing wise, you know, gonna grab
people enough.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
You're right if you see that in the uh in
the theater. I think the one, the last one is
probably my favorite two just because of that. But the
original one where he's standing and grasping his shoulders was
the one I saw, which led me to the trailer,
which then I sent to you because I was like
Marlon Wayns in a movie, Like I was more drawn
to the fact that I was like, that's Marlon Wayn's right,
(17:53):
Like outside of some shows and stuff like that, I
haven't seen him in anything lately. So and then it
turned out to be like a great trailer, right, and
then we started talking about it, so it.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Got you and there is something about it that makes
you want to take a closer look because you're like,
there seems like there's more going on here than at
first glance.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, And the tagline Greatness Demand Sacrifice is really good.
So with the title, with the tagline, with the imagery.
You get a sense it's like it's playing up your
what you expect to see versus what you're actually hearing
and seeing and reading. And you're like, this isn't following,
It's not in line with what I'm expecting from a
(18:36):
football movie.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, well it isn't It isn't that Like the tagline
like kind of points out the like, Oh, I'm seeing
these odd things, then I see this tagline, then it
might click into place.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Right Yeah, Yeah, which brings us to the tagline.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, which is our next category.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So what do you think of this? Tell me what
you think.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
First, this is a total touchdown for me. The Greatness
Demands sacrifice just totally works hits on the sports theme,
but kind of alludes to the horror. I think this
like to go to another sport entirely knocks it out
of the park. You know. This is one of those
things you see and you're like, ah, they just got it.
They know what kind of movie they are, and they
like found something that's like perfect, and you're like a
(19:17):
kind of jealous that they came up with something that's
that good.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Really, not even knowing the full premise of the movie,
you get it. So I think obviously, this one's a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, that's a double touchdown for us. Let's go to
another aspect. This is a big one here. We often
talk about this the title of the movie as both
you know, part of the art and part of the marketing.
What do you think of him?
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I'm kind of torn on this. The very first thing
that came to my mind was, this is very, very
in line with what you expect from a Jordan Peele movie.
For whatever reason, you know, like us, all of his
movie titles seem like they follow this us.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, they're very short, succinct to the point, there's no
Killers of the Flower Moon, you know, like it's not
so you kind of go in thinking, oh, this is
going to be a movie that sort of turns things
around on you a little bit. Just going from the
title itself though, like without any preconceived notions. I think
(20:24):
about how football and in sports like people will say,
you know, I'm giving it up to Him, which is
him if you're awake and alive in this world. You know,
people say that and they're referencing God right or the Lord,
the Lord right, and they always give thanks to him.
So I'm thinking that's where that stems from. And so
(20:47):
there's this element to that. But does that tell you
what the movie is about. I can't say that it does,
but you know that there's like something you can't just
put your finger on, and maybe that's the beauty of it.
I don't know. It's so hard to pin it down.
Like I like it. I like the title. But then
if you go, Okay, well this is the title, say
(21:09):
what the movie is m I mean, does it always
have to I don't know, you know what I mean.
I have a feeling it's going to make total sense
when you see it, especially given the tagline. Right, you're
gonna go mmmm him yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want
to say this is like I went for a field
goal and then faked and then made a touchdown.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
This is an interesting one because I feel like, from
a you know, a movie artistic standpoint, maybe once I
even see it, I will think higher of it. But
I could see there's something there that's like him, Like
you're talking about referring to the Lord but also referring
to him this this great football player, you know, So
there's like this parallel there that could be pretty interesting.
(21:53):
But I just can't get away from my initial reaction,
and when I think a lot of people's initial reactions
were probably i'd be like, this is a pretty generic,
unmemorable title, you know, when you just kind of see
it off the cuff, not that it has to tell
you about the movie, but it has to kind of
grab you in some way, and him just doesn't really
do that. I think that's probably a fumble in that sense,
(22:16):
maybe even a fumble where the other team grabs the
ball and scores, because I just don't know if this
is a kind of title that's gonna get people. I
don't know that Goat was a better title, but maybe
I do think there's probably a better title that works
on dual levels, like the tagline does. I don't know
what that is, but I think I feel like there's
(22:37):
something out there that could have worked like that. This one,
I just feel like is too. It just doesn't have
anything that sinks. And and again I might see the
movie and be like, no, that's the absolute perfect title.
It couldn't have been anything else when I see it
now ahead of seeing the movie, which is kind of
what's important. You know, one of those titles where you're like, oh,
(22:58):
that just seems like something I want to see, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, it doesn't have that feel. Yeah, And that's the
point I was kind of going for, is that you
know the title before seeing the movie versus after, it
can weigh the outcome of how you feel about it,
or it can affect the outcome. So fumble.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, I'm gonna call it a fumble. So this is
we diverge here.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Okay. I get what you're saying. I really do, and
I get what you're saying. All right, Okay, So how
about the viral and the social.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
The viral and the social to me was mostly you know,
from what I've seen. I obviously didn't go through every
post or everything they've ever done, but I checked it out.
They're on Instagram, they're on Facebook, they're on x, they're
on TikTok. They've got their basic you know, movie site,
find a showtime. So that's a feel goal to me.
Most of it it exists. I didn't see a lot
(23:50):
that blows me away. I thought their TikTok was pretty good.
They had like some cool eye catching clips. Obviously, there's
a lot of visual imagery from this movie that like
grabs you, so to put that in like two to
four second clips and that can loop and stuff like that.
That's pretty grabbing. So I think they've done that pretty well.
They have some good stuff on there, but all in all,
(24:12):
I was like, I didn't see anything that I was like, Ooh,
they're doing some really cool stuff on here.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, there's nothing groundbreaking that I saw at all. Like
the website, the social media. I mean like they're doing
the things. They're there, they're in those spaces.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah, they're checking the boxes.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
From my vantage point, i'd be like fumble field goal.
But then I look at like, I think this movie's
getting a lot of traction because of those channels, specifically
social channels. Because like we were talking about before we
hopped on to record, I mean, my son, people are
like going to see it tonight opening night. That's not
(24:53):
very common. And the audience that was going to see
it I thought was interesting. The front that he was
going with didn't seem like they were the ones who
would go see this movie, you know, if that makes
any sense. So there's something going on there that's attracting
younger audiences anyway, So.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Maybe what they're doing is working. They've been doing a
lot of general ad spending. It seems like, I know,
they've been playing like a lot of commercials during NFL games,
which is, you know, makes sense considering the the football
tie in this movie, and I think some you know,
billboard and stuff like traditional what you would call advertising too.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, so I'd give it a field goal, you know,
even though in my personal opinion, I'm like, yeah, you know,
they didn't do anything like really cool or unique like
Blair Witch.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah. We're always looking for something that we're like, oh,
that's that's interesting, that's really that's really blown things up
or gone viral.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, like weapons, Right, they're doing stuff like weird stuff
that people are like talking about, you know, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, which kind of takes us to our next category,
which is the online conversation the buzz. What sense do
you get to that? Where would you place that? At
this point as the movie's opening up, what.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I've been seeing the buzz is kind of like focused
on Jordan Peele's reputation, so I think a lot of
people are expecting him to, you know, follow a similar formula,
and I think that some of the secrecy of it,
which they've done a really good job of, has helped
with that right, like the mystery, we go back to
the mystery of what the heck is going on in
(26:33):
this movie. I haven't seen any spoilers, which is really
good overall, though, I think there have been, you know,
some good buzz conversations that are happening about it, and
they're mixed. You know, there are some people who are like,
you know, given some critical takes on it and the
religious side of it, the like religious overtones. I think
(26:54):
that gets some positive and negative reviews, you know, because
there's always gonna be people who are like, it's blasphemy.
I don't know how you would escape that with a
movie like this, because it seems like there's a big
part of that movie that is very heavy handed, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, so where did you Where'd you land? What's your score?
I guess what are you putting on the scoreboard?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
This one? I would say touchdown because I think this
is what caused you know, this other element which I
was talking about before with with the social and stuff,
where like younger audiences, kids who are in the nineteen
twenty twenty one college range, are going to see it,
you know, So there's there's some buzz, there's some conversations
happening there because of it, getting them in the seats,
(27:42):
getting them in the seats.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I'm glad you mentioned the Jordan Peel ness of this
whole thing. We should have brought this up. I'm surprised
we didn't. With the trailers and the movie posters, this is,
you know, being marketed and sold essentially like a Jordan
Peel movie. This is not. You know, Jordan Peel didn't
write or direct this movie, but they're very much selling
it like his name first, like he did. Yeah, produced
(28:06):
by Jordan Peele's at the top of the poster, you know,
it's his name is big in all the trailers. You're
gonna see it everywhere, and you're gonna people are gonna think, oh,
this is Jordan Peele's newest movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I did too. When I said it to you, I
was like, oh, this is Jordan Peele cause I didn't
even read the fine print. You know, he's a producer
on the movie. Yeah, yeah, not the director, not the writer.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, it seems like you know, it's in this as
you mentioned, in the style of his movie. It's named
in the style of his movies.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah, and his.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Name's up at the top there's no reason you wouldn't
think that, and I think they want you to think that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
But a producer, right, I mean, they have a lot
of influence on a movie and his name being tied
to it. They know that he's got a level of cred.
Why wouldn't you use that to your advantage? I guess
he believes in the project enough.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, I mean it's from his production company. You know,
he's out there on the marketing. He's like promoting this movie,
so you see him out there. He is definitely involved
in it, probably more than most producers are in movies.
I you know, when it comes to the online conversation,
I'm I'm a little more lukewarm. I see it as
more like a field goal, maybe even verging on a
(29:20):
fumble in some ways. I look at some of like
the top reddit threads in there, A lot of them
are along the lines of is anyone excited for this movie?
That causes me some concern? You know, Reading the reddit
room a little bit, I'm like, do I have some
should I be worried a little bit? Here? It doesn't
seem like people are through the roof necessarily, So I'm
(29:42):
gonna call this one a field goal. But yeah, I
have some trepidation.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, I've seen some like people have wondered how you know,
the mainstream audiences, especially football fans, will receive the film's
critique of the beloved sport because there's all those there's
all those elements to it, right, there's the religious, there's
the the actual football critique. Because you could see the
(30:09):
suffering and the sacrifice and like in a very real,
bloody gory way. It seems like so mm hmm. Yeah,
it'd be interesting to see how that plays out. But
I you know, I do agree with you to some extent,
especially if it's Reddit. If it's on Reddit, you know,
someone said it, right, it's my new I'm coining that phrase.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, it's good. It's good. Do you have any other
any other things you want to talk about? Pr merch
product times. I don't really have any others. I don't
know if you have any.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Here's something that I came across today, Okay, an email
from Regal Crown Club, Regal Cinemas. Yeah, they sent you know,
the ritual begins. I don't know if this is a
tie in, but is it a popcorn bucket?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
No?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But they have something called juiced j U I c
ed juiced spiked lemonade that you can get apparently in
the theater must be twenty one with valid ID. Please
drink responsibly. I think this is kind of interesting. In
the email, you know, it's him juice spike lemonade. There's
(31:14):
like a glass with ice in it and something else.
I can't really tell, but it looks like there's a
syringe with like red blood yeah, yeah, or something football's
got blood coming down it and juice is in all red.
Kind of like that hymn font interesting product tie in
or whatever that is. I don't spiked lemonade kind of cool.
(31:35):
I like that they're doing something different. It's not a
popcorn bucket.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, I'm all for any of that stuff. I love
the lobby tie in merch promo materials. Like even just
walking up to see a movie and seeing that other
stuff for other movies gets me hyped up.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, especially when it's unique. Yeah you know what I mean, Like, oh,
I haven't seen them try that yet. Just do a
little do a little something different. I think people would
dig that.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, I you know, I like that. I'll give that
a touchdown.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, that was the only other thing I saw recently,
and I mean it's something outside of like the norm.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So all in all, you know, you look at the scoreboard,
I think him did pretty well a mixed a mixed
bag in some ways, but I think it's generally on
the positive.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, it could quickly turn or maybe this is like
a new cult classic that everybody's talking about after they
see it, they're like, man, that was great. And you
don't know because, like I said, since we're recording this
on the eve of Him's release, how about we talk
a little bit about what we predict this is going
to do at the box office. We've done this before.
(32:40):
We don't have any clue at this point. Will it
be a w or now? Will it win or lose?
And will it be uh something that people talk about
in favorable light about Jordan Peele and Monkey Paul or
will they be like, oh that was the worst.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
It's a good question. So this we like to do
from time to time, or you know, predict the domestic,
predict the international box office. See who gets closer. Of course,
price is right rules.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
You can't go over right right right, right, right right right.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
I'll head to first my domestic This is gonna be
lower than years. I don't know, but I'm going thirty two.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Million, oh okay, total like domestic.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, total domestic. I think it's going to open at
like fourteen, and I think it's gonna do okay, but
I don't think it's going to be like a huge runaway.
I think it's just gonna do average. I'm not sure
it's gonna get one the football people, and I think
the non football people might be turned off by the football.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
M okay.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
So I think it's gonna be just kind of a
mediocre you know, it's going to like make mostly its
money back a little bit, but that's about it.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
So what about are we doing international? What do you
think any Yeah, we'll do international too. And then I
see international and I'm like, well, does anybody care about
American football internationally? So I'm going to go I'll go
fifty million there.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
So thirty two and fifty okay, Yeah, that's uh yeah,
that's is that significantly lower than yours.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's it's significantly lower. So what is that total?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Well, thirty two domestic, fifty million is the total international
which includes the domestic.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Oh that includes domestic.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So it's only going to make eighteen
million international. Okay, you're thinking this is wild, you think
it's way you must think that's way too low because
you're asking questions.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
No, I think you're I think you're well. Yeah, So
here's my take is that I think that domestic it's
probably going to do about one hundred million.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Whoa, Okay, that's much higher.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, so my domestic is way higher. In your international,
I'll say it's going to probably do like forty, So
i'd say total why to be like one forty?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
So yeah, very different takes.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, you know, because I think if you're just even
looking historically, if it goes in line with Candy Man,
you're going to be dead on Because Candy Man, which
was just Monkey Paul producing that one, did sixty two
domestic and sixteen international, so total seventy seven. So you're
(35:24):
like right there, you know what I mean. But if
you go with any of the other movies that Jordan
now did have a big part in, those ones did
considerably more. I could see what you're saying. Though. The
argument is could it appealed to these audiences, which might
it might alienate them?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, I could split. We have different takes here. I'm
kind of more of a I'm closer to a fumble,
you're closer to a touchdown.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, I'd say it's probably going to be at least
a field goal. But I don't know. We'll see Marlon
wains like if this thing. I think at the very
least he might see some awards for this role.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Oh, that would be interesting.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, I would like to see that. Actually, I mean,
being from the time period when Marlon ways sort of
came through as a comedic actor, you know, and stuff
like I would I would really like to see him
get awards for like a pretty dramatic role. I think
that would be pretty cool. I think that would set
it up too, to have some legs beyond the box office.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
I'd like to see that. I'm interested in the movie
in general. I definitely it's on my want to see list.
Will I get to in the theater? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Well, hopefully you got a little bit out of this.
Maybe you're interested in seeing it. Let us know what
you think feedback at Speaking human dot com. We'd love
to hear if you're planning on seeing Marlon Wayns in
a critical critical role. I don't.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I don't know if it's that career changing, potential Oscar winning.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah performance, Oh yeah, potential Oscar winning. I'm gonna nominate
him based on his trailer Best Trailer Performance by a
Lead Actor Lead Supporting Actor. I don't know that would
actually be great. Could we do that the Trailer Awards,
(37:15):
the Trailer Awards, Yeah, we should.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That's not a bad idea. Let's save that for a
moment at the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Absolutely, I think that's gonna be a that's gonna be
a winner winner.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
He could at least win Best Actor with mangled Fingers
on a poster. But that wouldn't be a trailer award.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
No, it would be the poster based on a trailer award.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Well, we hope you like this episode of MoMA. That's it,
and that's all for movies and marketing until next time.
Let's fade to black. I would be back.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
He's coming.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
I hide high High
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It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
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