I liked Mark Cuban’s idea for a rebirth of the 30-second ad spot. Great out of the box thinking.
So I was reading a review of the new Jack Black movie, Nacho Libre, on my drive into work this morning (yes, I’ve gotten into the unsafe bad habit of reading email and news on my cell phone while driving) and doing some out-of-the-box thinking myself, it occurred to me that the moviemakers should respond to reviews of the movie. Most of reviewers, based on a quick skim of the 300+ reviews of the movie on Google News, try to deliver some sort of intellectual commentary/analysis of the movie. Come on folks, who wants an intellectual dissection of “Jack Black’s coming of age as an actor vis-a-vis his performance in Nacho Libre”? This is Nacho Libre (and Jack Black) we’re talking about!!
So not only would this make for a great publicity stunt but it would be sure to galvanize fans of the movie. I mean, let’s face it, no one goes to see a movie like Nacho Libre because of what Roger Ebert had to say about it!
In general, apart from Nacho Libre, moviemakers should respond to reviews of a movie and engage their customers in a conversation about their product. Why not? It seems to be working for everyone else. Da Vinci code, for example, got panned by reviewers. Why not let moviegoers hear from the moviemakers and have them defend themselves, speak up about where reviewers are wrong? Extras and interactive features on DVDs are popular, why wouldn’t they be popular while a movie is still in the theaters? And with the high-cost of advertising in newspapers, engaging customers in a conversation about a movie would deliver a high bang-for-the-buck.