This Week In Movie Posters, July 7

We've got loads of new posters, bizarre eyelines, and strangely mismatching names. Come scroll with me! For my pleasure.

Welcome to the This Week In Movie Posters, the feature in which we go through all the week’s new movie posters and read way too much into them. All posters via IMPAwards.

Did you know they made a Bob Marley musical? Well, they did. I’m shocked it took this long, but I’m guessing there were rights issues to be worked out. I actually wrote up the trailer for this one for GQ, but the Cliff’s Notes version is that it was “produced with the full cooperation of the Marley family” (duh) and comes from the director of King Richard, who clearly knows a thing or two about puff-piece biopics produced by the family of the subject.

As you might expect, judging by the trailer, it doesn’t seem like the director of King Richard has any interest in challenging any accepted notions about who Bob Marley was. Yet Bob Marley iconography eclipsed Bob Marley so long ago that even a PR-exercise-disguised-as-a-biopic has a chance to tell us a few things we didn’t know.

Anyway, the poster seems par for course. It seems to ask “what if poster for Bob Marley movie exactly like Bob Marley poster?”

“Some voices are forever.”

Mm-hmm, sure. You ever read a sentence that you feel like devalues the entire concept of words?

Whoa, they’re totally in my face! I actually don’t know any of the people in this poster for BAM!, but the poster is making me feel like I should. That’s just good design, inducing a sort of FOMO meets GTBMO (glad to be missing out).

This looks like the Florida Project of Brooklyn.

IMDB says:

As the lives of gig economy workers intersect, they learn the value of friendship, love, and community in a late stage capitalist world.

“…in a late stage capitalist world” is the new “during the twilight of the American Dream.”

Hmm, you think “it lives inside” that girl, that jar, or that book? I love a good game of “which thingy is haunted?”

I’m impressed that Jason Blum and Jordan Peele basically have their own branded font now. Neither of them are listed in the credits for this, by the way.

Is that Dark Brandon in there?? Just kidding, it’s an evil nun, obvi. Love an evil nun. Easily my favorite horror movie conceit behind creepy little kid and haunted house.

Has there been a stronger driver of lower-budget indie movies than “Nic Cage with weird hair?” It’s like catnip for Israeli music video directors.

You’d think with a tagline like “revenge is a hell of a ride,” they’d have some visual in the poster to bolster the “ride” theme. Like, is this about cars? Roller coasters? Or is it all a metaphor? I appreciate that they didn’t bother giving us any plot hints but they made DAMNED SURE the poster had some sparks in it. Movie can’t appeal to dads unless the poster has lots of sparks, I always say.

Here’s the poster for August at 22. 22-year-olds do be taking selfies, am I right? Classic.

And here we have the poster for Dead Man’s Hand, which I assumed was named for game I like to play with myself when the wife is out of the house (I said the wife, you cannot Borat me).

Anyway, this brings us the first inexplicably mis-ordered names poster of the week. What a fun game, trying to figure out which one is Cole Hauser! I’m kidding, it’s the guy on the right, of course. Only took me a couple seconds to figure out.

“Play your cards right and you just might survive.”

Again, no cards in the poster, so if this was meant to be a play on words it doesn’t really come off. Mostly I see pistols. I actually can’t tell if the three small people on the bottom right are the same people as the three up top, but I like the idea that the designer thought they’d better include another picture of them holding pistols just in case people get worried that not enough of them would have pistols. Don’t worry! Everyone has guns!

Also: Dirt particles are the sparks of the old west.

Damn, I can’t believe Banksy is going to steal that giant ugly ass pearl.

Miracle Club has to be by the strangest case of names not lining up with faces I’ve ever seen. They put the names of all the Academy Award winners (and nominees) up at the top, I get that. But then they chose to include Stephen Rea, who isn’t in the poster, and exclude Agnes O’Casey, who is in the poster. Is the person who designs the poster a different person than the person who creates the text for the poster? And are they not allowed to talk to each other?

Damn, someone really messed up Maggie Q’s sensible wardrobe from JCPenney. Was it… the night? I’ll get you for this, night!

I know what that hand means! That’s telekinesis, Kyle!

I actually kind of feel bad for that bald guy on the right, because his face just screams “middling indie” to me.

Are you excited for Oppenheimer yet?? Well what if I told you there were MORE SPARKS?? That’s why the dads used to wear fedoras all the time, it was to keep the sparks out of their eyes.

Every Liam Neeson poster used to have Liam Neeson holding a pistol, but apparently he’s aged out of that and only looks at explosions now. This is another trailer I wrote up for GQ, but the gist of it is that it’s basically Liam Neesons meets Speed.

I can’t believe they went with “from the producers of Non-Stop and The Commuter,” two movies no human on Earth remembers, and not “from the director of Kontroll and Predators,” which are actually good.

Aw, I love a nice spy. A spy you can bring home to mom. Usually they’re always jumping and punching and motorcycle riding all over the place, like that damned Jason Bourne. Too rambunctious for my tastes! This looks like just what the doctor ordered.

Jesus Christ, this might be the worst poster I’ve ever seen. Who the hell thought “two weirdly-lit, uncannily photoshopped torsos with arbitrary eyelines” was a good idea? I guess this is a movie for people who just want to see some nice young folks go for a hike.

Wow, I can’t believe they got Not Christian Bale AND Not Pedro Pascal for this one.

Yes, Disney is making a movie out of the Haunted Mansion ride. I would decry this as a new low, but they already did this with Pirates of the Caribbean and it worked out pretty well for them. Not for people who like good movies, but definitely for, like, Disney executives who like money.

Milton’s azaleas? Not Milton’s azaleas!

This poster for Jules seems to be using the alien silhouette as the visual framing device, which is fine enough I guess, though it’d be cooler if the alien had a more distinctive silhouette. This just sort of looks like when I try to draw any person.

I have a rare disease that causes me to find actual baseball games unwatchably dull but baseball books and documentaries endlessly fascinating, so this looks right up my alley. Questlove gets his name above the title now, huh? Not bad.

“Oi, Tommy, wid you look at aw dese focken megs, hey? Oy fink da choppahs is only makin’ em dem angry.”

You know, I would’ve thought the first rule of a good underwater shark-fighting suit was having a water-tight face compartment for air breathing, but what do I know.

Here’s Liam Neeson looking at more explosions. He seems even more concerned this time around.

GRRR, SPARKS!

I saw the trailer for this the other day and it looked kind of cool. I don’t know why they tried to make the poster look like a kids movie from the seventies.

This is just one of another huge batch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem character posters. I’m not going to post them all, but here’s one just to give you a taste. As the umpteenth TMNT adaptation, it looks like they went with the Spider-Verse approach. Which… isn’t a bad approach, actually, the animation looks cool at least. Does it say “sequences” on his sword? Is that a reference I’m not getting?

UPDATE: Apparently it says “consequences.” I am very dumb.

They put Danny DeVito in the Haunted Mansion movie! Wild stuff! I met Danny DeVito at Comic-Con once. Introduced myself before shaking hands, and he said “Breaking Bad.” To which I responded, “…?” “Gilligan!”

And then I was like “Oh right! Vince Gilligan! The creator of Breaking Bad is also named Vince.” Undoubtedly one of the coolest celebrity encounters anyone has ever had.

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Other stuff!

Sorry for the slow posting lately! I’ve had a sinus infection all week that I’m trying to suck up and get through without begging my doctor for antibiotics. It sucks shit! I have a longer essay I meant to get up at least a week ago but my brain just doesn’t work well enough to make it come together. Apologies.

Here’s the trailer for Corner Office. Looks weird! Like Office Space meets Severance?

I never quite warmed to Jon Hamm’s decade-long quest to be a funny guy but he’s always great as a scowling misnthrope. And Danny Pudi! Where the hell has that guy been? He was so good in Community.