Prometheus Set To Reach Beyond The Fans To The Uninitiated
If, like all self-respecting sci-fi fans and most film buffs, you’ve already been hooked by Prometheus’s unremittingly creative marketing – you need no further invitation to the main event.
But if you’re not yet aware of the imminent arrival of Ridley Scott’s forthcoming multiplex slayer, it’s your turn to get ‘wonder-ed’. It probably doesn’t seem possible but – starting tomorrow – things are about to step up a gear.
This Sunday, at 21:10 pm, UK television network Channel Four will air an exclusive, new trailer for Prometheus during the first ad break of the hit drama Homeland. In a thoroughly clever move, Scott and 20th Century Fox have positioned the trailer’s slot to capture the (highest figures in the series so far), 2.6 million viewers currently enjoying the very-much-rooted-on-terra-firma political thriller starring Brit actor Damian Lewis and the U.S’s Clare Danes.
After the first ad break, things will shift to Twitter.Viewers will be encouraged to share their feedback about the trailer screening and add the hashtag #areyouseeingthis,one of the key lines uttered by actress Noomi Rapace in the film. Some of those tweets will then be screened in Homeland’s second ad break as part of a genuinely interactive event.
What we are seeing – to retool a phrase – is a serious push by Fox to tap a much wider audience in the 31 days between now, and the first opening weekend of Prometheus in Europe. Before it hits U.S theaters on June 8, the film will debut in France, Belgium and Switzerland on May 30, then across Eastern Europe from May 31 and the UK on June 1.
Tomorrow, millions of unsuspecting TV viewers who probably don’t consider themselves sci-fi aficionados, will be “invited” to take a chance on the visionary adventure Ridley Scott has waited over 30 years to revisit.
That’s a long time to wait. But Scott has come back determined to pose some of the grandest possible answers to the biggest questions of all: “Where do we come from”, “who are we”, and “are we alone here?”
Whether or not an unholy battle with the MPAA is still going on behind the scenes, is now sort of redundant. Speaking at the recent Cinemacon, Fox CEO, Tom Rothman, unequivocally answered fears that a R-rating from the MPAA would result in cuts to shoehorn Prometheus into a PG-13 rating, declaring,
“The movie will be what it should be. We will not cut a frame of the film. We will stand behind it 100 percent and if that means it’s an R, then so be it, because not an ounce, not a percentage are we going to compromise the film.”
In a recent interview with Geoff Boucher – LA Times journalist, and now also host of “Hero Complex: The Show” which airs on the Nerdist Channel – Scott told Boucher, “ if you want to beat your head against the wall, there’s always an answer.”
The certain knowledge that Scott has wrestled – for years – with screenplays, money-men, ratings boards, and his own creative ideas and impulses to bring something of value – something wondrous – to the masses, is not only inspiring.
It’s hardcore.
