When choosing movies to see, I have one rule - no 'white poster movies'. What is a white poster movie, I hear you ask? Quite simply, they are movies where the poster says absolutely nothing about what you're invited to see, opting instead for a major shot of the big drawcard celeb(s) instead. White posters betray that the prime selling point for a film is the name actor and not the abysmal script or shoddy direction.
Even if I discover more about the film from other sources, the fact that the marketing team chose to go with a 'white poster' is enough to convince me that the film would be a major disappointment. If the film doesn't even inspire the marketing department to come up with something more interesting for the poster, then it must be entirely forgettable.
But the trend continues. Sometimes, the celeb may be allowed to hold a prop, but usually this is no more enlightening than the white background. So Sandra Bullock is holding an engagement ring. The film is called The Proposal, so it's not really telling us much we didn't already know. So Reese is stood on a couple of suitcases in a film called Four Holidays. Yup, still no closer to determining why this film is any more worthy of my attention than every other film based around a getaway. Another version of this poster adds tinsel to alert us that the holiday of the title is that Christmas one some Americans seem so scared to reference directly these days for fear of offending someone who probably wouldn't care anyway. (The film was released as Four Christmasses in the UK - no problems or riots in the street there.) But even with the tinsel giving us a clue to which holiday the title refers to, it doesn't do a great deal to let us know why I should open my wallet and invest in popcorn.
A film poster should entice an audience by letting them know what to expect. Look at the classic poster for Star Wars, for example. You can see it has space ships, weird aliens and robots, far off planets and a scary looking villain. Would the film poster have captured our imagination if it was just Peter Cushing (the biggest star on a largely unknown cast) against a white background? Would Raiders of the Lost Ark's poster have conveyed the excitement and pizazz of the film if it simply featured a massive head and shoulders of Harrison Ford?
Yet this is exactly the approach that Seven Pounds took with Will Smith. What is that film is about? Why should I see it? I'm sorry but, much as I like Will Smith, he's not enough by himself to convince me that I'll enjoy an ambiguously titled film without any other indication of whether to expect comedy, drama, tears or frights.
Just in case some of you interpret me too literally, adding a pastel shade of blue to the background (as in Sweet Home Alabama, right) doesn't exempt a film from this theory. The colour is immaterial, even though white is more common. It is the willingness to hang the entire marketing of a film around the central star actor(s) alone that betrays the weakness of all other selling points. Reese Witherspoon, in this example, is not even able to give us an indication of character, context or anything. She is Reese and that is all the studio thinks we need to know to get us into theatres.
I think the white poster phenomenon is a more recent development. Thinking back, I can't think of a similar poster from the 60's or 70's for example. Film posters used to be packed with excitement, working hard to inspire you to sit in a dark room with sticky carpet just to find out what happens!
It is symptomatic of the cynical approach Hollywood now takes towards movies. These films are intended to be forgettable, ephemeral distractions instead of true filmic masterpieces. The producers are after the quick return while a celebrity's star is on the rise, not the long term classic status that comes with a beautifully crafted story.
So it isn't surprising that as little effort is put into the poster than into the film itself. So far, my self-imposed ban on white poster movies has not been disproven. (Now that's me tempting fate as I'm sure one of you bright sparks will point out a brilliant and award winning film that qualifies but which I had forgotten in creating this 'theory').
For now, a white poster serves as a red flag, protecting me from soul-sucking boredom.
