 Movies are a strange medium that could bounce around and do whatever they want. You could watch Reddit 2 on a Monday after work. And then on Tuesday, you could watch Space Jam after breakfast. And then on a Friday, you could end the work week with Netflix exclusive The Irishman. That's only if you're a letterbox, Scotland. Let me pose a question to anyone who has made anything. What's the most important part of the process? A, creating the thing, or B, letting people know you made it and even exist. There's tons of great movies out there that you will never care to watch because And there's tons of shitty movies that you'll give the time of day because of good promotion. David Ayer's Suicide Squad had a good trailer and fun marketing campaign. But the actual movie kinda sucked. And James Gunn did the sequel and it was really good. But the marketing sucked. Instead of calling it Task Force X or anything to disassociate itself with the previous film, it instead decided to call itself The Suicide Squad. Which was a sequel to Suicide Squad. And by adding just a thuh, it created confusion. Is this a sequel or a reboot? What happened to Will Smith? That's not true. That's a lie. She's lying to you. Oh, it's just gonna be shit like the first one. And then I had to run to my friends and be like, Guys, it's a James Gunn's film. He made Guardians of Galaxy 1 and 2. Trust me, it's gonna be good. And they didn't watch it with me in theaters, so I watched on HBO Max. David Ayer's Suicide Squad cost $175 million to make. And it made $746 million at the box office. The Suicide Squad by James Gunn cost $185 million to make. And made $167 million at the box office. And this isn't even accounting for the advertising budget. Of course, there was the rated R factor in HBO Max. But even without those limitations, it would have been an uphill battle. The one who called you. It's a celebration, bitch. The world is a cruel place, and making the best piece of art you can will always matter. But not all the time for making money. Sometimes your branding and marketing can matter even more than the actual product. Another take on the hero's journey, slap slimes on it. Funny goofy action movie with dinosaurs, Jurassic Park. Lighthearted superhero movie, Marvel. All billion dollar successes. All these IPs have legacy and a good reputation behind them. So they're able to experiment and make whatever they want because they're for sure making money. But there was once a time where nobody knew what the hell any of these big franchises were. And a big piece of marketing to find out was from their movie posters. Movie posters have been around since the 1800s to market theater performances. They were really simple, but did the job. Here's what the play is about. Here's where the play is, and here's who's in it. I'm not gonna dish out names or how good the plays were. This isn't a Crash Course video, and I assume you get the main point. If you advertise your play, you get more asses and seats, which means more money in the playwright's pocket. But as the film industry continued to boom, so did the pride of artwork on a poster. I would say everyone judges a book by its cover, but nobody fucking reads anywhere. Back then, if you had a cool poster, people were inclined to see your movie over the other ones with shitty posters. And as Hollywood still continued to boom, a film changed the game and created a formula that you still see today with the common poster. And that was the poster for the film Casablanca. I can't stand this film, because I had to write a boring paper about it in my freshman year at college, but if you love it, that's awesome. Here's a couple. It wasn't the first poster to ever have a collage of famous named actors shoved into one area, but it had an assortment of colors and composition that made it pop dramatically compared to anything before it. But through the 1950s, you saw the growth of illustrated movie posters. Attack of the 50-foot woman, a streetcar named Desire, and many more in the same style. The illustrated poster was cool, but it was also repetitive and started to come outdated, so they naturally made their way out. And sadly, a lot of the artists for these posters went uncredited. And a lot of the artwork was sadly disposed after they served their bare minimum purpose of marketing. But let's zoom forward to the 70s, 80s, and 90s. This could be known as the Symbolistic Era. Some of the most iconic films of these eras had the most iconic posters. Take Stanley Kubrick's films, for example. The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Clockwork Orange. They're not obnoxious or overcrowded, but instead simplistic and creative. And these type of posters wore everywhere. Alien, Apocalypse Now, The Exorcist, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, Jaws. There were tons of movies with wicked style. And the reason why there were so many of these good posters was because of the simple fun of competition. In the late 1900s, you didn't have YouTuber TikTok playing an ad after every video or the power of today's internet. So if you wanted to learn about new films, you'd have to get out of your car and discover them from the trailers that played in the cinema before your movie started, as well as the movie posters that were displayed outside of the theater. Unless you went to drive in and watch the trailers from inside the car. That's not comfortable. If you have a truck, you could set up blankets in the bed. And if you don't have a truck, you could snuggle in the back by popping the truck. The point is, if you went to the cinema for a weekend and took a glance to the left and saw a poster for The Thing, it would be impossible for the movie to instantly leave your mind. You would go, what the hell is that thing? And then you'd go watch The Thing in theaters. That was some funny wordplay. Let's give a round of applause for your good pals, Skipper. And as these blockbusters continue to boom, so did the actors that were in them. While Jaws was the first ever Hollywood blockbuster success, a lot of the cast was forgotten past their era. But not the main actor of Indiana Jones. That starred Harrison Ford, who just came off Star Wars. Having the main actor in your poster isn't bad by any means. Harrison Ford was a superstar, so putting him on the face of your movie let people know that this is the main character of the film. But it also lets you know, hey, we have Harrison Ford. Come buy a ticket and give us money. You black son of a bitch. So of course, after the success of Indiana Jones, the same thing was done for the poster of Blade Runner. If the poster displays the main actor, but is artistic and creative, then I don't see any reason to critique it. Well, you can't critique our shitty posters like this for X-Men First Class. They had James McAvoy's head in the wheelchair, only to show you that James McAvoy's in the movie. Drew Struzan is the mastermind behind some of the best posters you've ever seen. He made the Indiana Jones posters, Harry Potter posters, Star Wars posters, Back to the Future, Hook, Blade Runner, Shawshank Redemption, and many more. He's designed a shit ton of actor-focused posters, but innovated in artistic style and made them gorgeous. Everything in the posters helped pitch the movie in some manner. They have popping colors that contrast with one another, neat additions related to the film, and fantastic composition. Spielberg films had great actor-centered posters like Indiana Jones made by Drew Struzan, and he's also had shitty ones like Saving Private Ryan with three floating heads in a row with no creativity or afterthought. Compare this to Inglorious Basterds, or Full Metal Jacket that have iconic posters that could still be talked about in a positive context. Saving Private Ryan was an amazing film. It just had a generic and lazy poster. And throughout the 2000s, it started to become apparent that a lot of movies were made with the sole intention of only profit. And the posters reflected the byproduct creating trends of mediocrity. You have a copy-paste rom-com, most likely starring Matthew Bikane since he was getting his bag at the time, throw a boring white background with the main characters being back-to-back. And if it's not a white backdrop, still have it be basic. Throw in some boring texts that you had the coffee guy think of on spot and wham! You have all the wine moms who love to spend the weekends watching sex in the city and the Kardashians storming the center. Got a movie about a woman trying to make it in the big city and find love? Give them a red outfit and stick them on the front of the cover. Got a naughty movie? Shot in between the legs. Action movie? Orange and blue with the main actors on the screen will do the job. Horror movie copy-paste the same generic zoomed in eye. The modern movie posters no longer made to go down in history with artistic integrity, but instead only made to show you who is in the movie and what the vibes of them are. For as long as cinema continues, you will hear about the poster Friday the 13th in John Carpenter's Halloween, because both of these posters have a kick-ass style. The 2009 Friday the 13th reboot does not have this, nor does the generic poster for Halloween kills. An even better example is the original Sam Raimi Evil Dead poster versus the remake that plasters a tagline over the picture. Most posters as of late have been pathetic and uninspired. And the most recent trend with modern movie posters has been the infamous floating head, creeping back into everything. The floating head has been around forever, like I mentioned earlier, with Casablanca's floating head poster, as well as the artistic style of Drew Struzan. But in the last decade, old franchises have mass rebooted, writing off the reputation of their innovative beginnings. And this is also translated to the poster work. Films have attempted to copy the styles of Drew Struzan, but lack the main component of why his posters don't come off as generic and ugly. And that's creativity. The largest modern success in the film industry has been superhero films. And while at the top of the food chain, they have chosen to cut out creativity and modern posters in favor of keeping a consistent formula that works. Creativity is inherently risky. You could create an iconic, gorgeous-looking poster with a chance of it not captivating the audience you want. You could take the risk for greatness or you could avoid the gamble entirely and do what has worked in the past. When you look at the promotional posters for Spider-Man 3, you see risk, and it made these posters iconic. And when you look at Spider-Man Homecoming, you also see a simplistic and woody poster that could sell the movie. But the main poster lacks all the things I just mentioned. The Spider-Man Homecoming poster is a loud cluttered mess, showing off all the talent in the film, but with no creativity or craftsmanship, the opposite of any poster made by Drew Strezzan. And the same outcome was present within its sequels, Far From Home and No Way Home. All the Spider-Man posters before the MCU trilogy were simple and interesting, without being too obnoxious. But instead of going with the better-looking alternative posters, they used ones that sacrificed artistic integrity but displayed the main cast. The mindset behind these floating heads doesn't just apply to superhero movies, though. On the thumbnail for this video, I showcased the poster for Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, alongside the original poster. Where the original poster was sleek and simple, the newer trilogy have fallen victim to marketing trends, putting all the dinosaurs onto a floating head format. Even the recent Jurassic World Dominion has fallen victim to the studio made floating head. Actors are not the only subjects to the floating head model. Another example could be the original Transformers movie from 2007, because Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf weren't big enough yet to advertise the movie on their own, so they used the characters that were more iconic. Recent movies have had decent-looking posters that get pushed to be an alternate so the floating head quota can be met, making all the posters on display repetitive and unappealing. The original Dune poster is subtle with high contrast, having an appealing shade of orange alongside black empty space. This is the floating head alternate. It has Zendaya, who was in the movie for seven minutes, and this one gets priority because of that. Last night in Soho's poster is good and creative, and it's replaced by a floating head. These posters are implemented with no creativity or intention besides marketing the talent in the film, so they all look like shit in comparison to their original counterpart. The Suicide Squad is a floating head poster done right. It's creative and has contrast to make everything stand out from one another. It's more than just showing you the main actors, following the principles of Drew Struzan. The Star Wars posters are also floating heads, and while most are made by Drew Struzan, the newer trilogy posters are not bad by any means. I don't like The Last Jedi as a film, but I can admit it's a great-looking poster. I'm okay with floating heads if they attempt to do something more than just filling a quota, but there's no reason to go above and beyond with a floating head poster if it's not your original vision, and most of the times the directors don't even have a say. In a perfect world, you could have a silhouette representing Matt Reeve's Batman, but because of modern competition, it has to have the mentality of, if you can't beat them, join them. So you get a poster like this. I'm a massive Robert Eggers fan, and his movie posters have been eerie and creative. The Witch is great, and The Lighthouse is also really good, and still managed to show the main two actors. So when I see the original Northman poster replaced with this, I know it was definitely out of his hands. That's why it's so weird to critique these posters, because it's essentially old man yells at cloud. Don't hate the player, hate the game. A24 movies live off the gimmick of giving creative control to the directors so it makes sense why you have such great-looking posters coming from the studio, and these include both of the Robert Eggers A24 produced posters. But the Northman was distributed by Universal, hence why you have a poster following the trend. The floating head poster is something that can't be defeated. While scripting this video, the poster for Lightyear was revealed, and it looks like a shitty Paw Patrol fan creation. Even the poster in this video's thumbnail looks like it would read, You are invited to Sam's 10th birthday party. But the truth is that movie posters don't matter anymore. Where a movie poster was once the main attraction to get people to see a movie, it's now the least important factor. Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom made 1.31 billion with its poster. No Way Home made 1.893 billion. Endgame made 2.798 billion. These posters were by no means make or break, and were most likely created last second. So there's no reason to care about a movie poster unless it's for the desire of being creative and iconic. It's impossible to judge the book by its cover because the cover isn't even a factor when you can watch the trailer instead. An audience is way more interested by spectacle in comparison to the cover. I didn't know anything about Dune prior to the movie, so it's smart to have all the main actors displayed on the cover because I'll show you who's in the movie, making the model objectively work even though it has no creativity. Blade Runner had a floating head poster that was creative. But sadly, the movie made less money than Dune. In a dream world, I wish the floating head was not a requirement at all. But if it's going to be around, it would be nice if studios put more effort into their creation besides PNGs and reused assets. Overall, the reason why movie posters have lost creativity is simply because there's no incentive to be creative. There's no competition because brand loyalty is extremely strong and accessibility has been improved since the 1970s. You still have movie posters that continue to be creative like Parasite are the many A24 movie posters, but when the intentions of making profit creep in, creativity is usually the first to go. Well, that's the video. Comment down below your favorite movie poster. I'm actually interested because there's so many iconic ones to choose from. Subscribe as well. I'm Dr. Skipper, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.