Everyone knows movie people love self-congratulatory circle jerks, but they’ve got nothing on the people who market them.  Remember The Dark Knight?  Its success had nothing to do with it being a good movie, it was all because of the “rich transmedia experience” designed by the marketing visionaries at 42 Entertainment.  And according to this new LA Times article, Where the Wild Things Are‘s success?  You guessed it, all because of marketing.

If they gave out Oscars for marketing campaigns, you could pretty much hand out the trophy right now to Warner Bros. marketing chief Sue Kroll, who almost single-handedly managed to find an audience [this may be one of the stupidest phrases I have ever read -Ed.] for “Where the Wild Things Are,” the new family movie that turned out not to really be a family movie at all.

You “found an audience” for a movie that defies genre?  Oh my God, let’s rename the sun in your honor!

According to Hollywood conventional wisdom, “Where the Wild Things Are” looked like a disaster in the making. Over budget and beset by endless delays, the movie kept being pushed back on the Warners schedule, picking up a nasty case of bad buzz after word leaked out that children had fled an early test screening in tears, put off by the dark tone of the film.

Hollywood conventional wisdom is the thing that gave us The Rock as the Tooth Fairy, remember? And I don’t know who you hang with, but where I’m from, “makes children cry” is the highest compliment you can give something.
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Douchebags who work in marketing (or as I like to call them, “club promoters with day jobs”) need only pass out a few flyers to convince themselves that they’re visionary supergeniuses. So of course the people who worked on The Dark Knight are wasting no time falling all over each other to take credit for the film’s success. After the jump, check out the hilariously dramatic, self-congratulatory, faux-gritty video put together by the people at 42 Entertainment, the company that oversaw the “Why So Serious/Elect Harvey Dent” marketing campaign for The Dark Knight.  Or as they call it, “A transmedia experience with over 10 million participants in over 75 countries that played across hundreds of web pages, interactive games, mobile phones, print, email, real world events, video and unique collectibles.”

You got a bunch of dorks to dress up, play video games, and collect toys. Congratulations. I’d say that’s worth at least four dismissive wank motions.
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