2012 is just a few days away, and there are a slew of new posters for films that will be released in the new year (assuming none of them switch over to The Weinstein Company, at which point, their release dates will be changed seven times before the film is inevitably dumped on Blu-ray. What up, “Shanghai”!).
For the new “Wanderlust” one-sheet, Universal has decided that audiences don’t want to see the faces of Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston. The poster features the two stars jumping into a lake, free of the worries of their former city lives. The David Wain-directed comedy opens February 24th after being moved from an October 2011 slot (and Rudd, Wain and co-writer Ken Marino all said the film would be coming out in January 2012 on last summer’s Comedy Bang Bang podcast). Release changes are sometimes indicators of a bad product, or too much studio tampering, but here’s hoping Wain has defied the odds and made an appealing comedy feature.
The “The Baytown Disco” poster takes more than a few notes from the “Bubba Ho-Tep” one-sheet, with one huge exception: ‘Baytown Disco’ looks pretty awful. This poster is a “straight-to-DVD” precursor if ever there was one. The tagline “A Southern Whip-Ass Extravaganza!” is a great reminder to filmmakers everywhere that when you try to make a cult classic, you will inevitably fail.
Two new posters have dropped for “Mirror Mirror,” the Tarsem-directed Snow White comedy that is currently in the lead for the Worst Picture Razzie at 2013’s ceremony. One poster features Julia Roberts (the Evil Queen) holding an apple. The other gets Lily Collins (Snow White) in the mix and features a silly red font that feels inspired by “Alvin and the Chipmunks” one-sheets. We’ll find out how similar the two films are on March 16th.
It’s hard to imagine Amanda Seyfried falling any faster from grace. Having learned nothing from 2011’s universally reviled “Red Riding Hood,” she’s back with another entry in the Dumb Thriller genre with “Gone,” which has a poster that is not only a Photoshop nightmare, but also feels like a perfect primer for vertigo. The one-sheet features Seyfried standing inside of her own hair, and a man standing inside of that second hair. The tagline reads: “No one believes her. Nothing will stop her.” We believe you, Amanda, now please, stop.
“The Rise of the Guardians” will be one of 2012’s big holiday-themed family films. Opening November 21, 2012 and featuring a voice cast of Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin, Isla Fisher and Jude Law, the DreamWorks Animation release is about what happens when “Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Jack Frost and the Sandman band together to form a united front against the Bogeyman.” The film is being co-directed by William Joyce, who wrote the book ‘Guardians’ is based on. Joyce’s directing partner on the project is Peter Ramsey, who helmed the 2009 direct-to-TV sequel “Monsters vs Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space.” (There wasn’t a “Shrek” director sitting around?)The film’s poster features Alec Baldwin as Santa Claus auditioning for that “Eastern Promises” sequel, Russian prison tattoos on display. FYI: This is not the sequel to “The Legend of the Guardians” all you Ga’Hoole Heads have been waiting for.
