Letting the movie speak for itself

By: Scott Dennis

Posted: 7/2/08

If you have walked through your local cinema lately, you may have seen a promotional poster for Disney's new animated feature, "Bolt."
If you were expecting the poster to tell you anything about the movie, its characters, or even its premise, you would be out of luck.
Instead of revealing anything of the film's once-original-but-now-clichéd plot, Disney wants you to know who does the voices.
Scrawled prominently across the top of the page in gleaming print are the names John Travolta and Miley Cyrus - the name of the movie itself is relegated to a bottom corner.
This is a curious advertising strategy, especially for Disney. There have been many animated Disney films that have employed celebrity voice talent, but markedly featuring the actors' names in advertising was not common practice for the company. Even promotional posters for its celebrity-filled "The Lion King" chose to promote the story and characters instead of the voices behind them.
In advertising "Bolt" as a film starring well-known personalities, Disney is basically saying, "See this movie because there are stars in it."
Please. This star-based advertising strategy for animated films was popularized by DreamWorks Pictures, whose animated films are infamous for featuring A-list actors.
Studios (I'm looking at you, DreamWorks) commonly promote a picture's famous voice actors in an attempt to pull focus from a film's lackluster story.
The box office effect of this tactic is that audiences go to a given film simply because a favorite actor is in it; this means that a studio can realistically expect good profits despite critics' disparaging reviews. Disney, perhaps sensing that "Bolt" is incapable of pulling audiences on its own merits, appears to be using the aforementioned star-based strategy.
It's kind of like they're dangling a shiny object in theaters and telling people, "Look at how shiny it is! Go to it!" But as it turns out, that radiant shine disguises a hook lying in wait. The technical term for this sort of thing is "brand exploitation."
For years Disney has been using its own good name to pass off uninspired drivel as quality family entertainment. With "Bolt," Disney's marketing department is attempting to use the actors' prior successes as proof of "Bolt's" quality.
They tried the same tactic in response to criticisms of the ongoing plans to add characters to the "It's a Small World" attraction. In order to quell the fandom, Disney had veteran employee Marty Sklar write a letter supporting the changes.
Disney hoped that, because of Sklar's friendship with Walt and involvement in creating popular Disney rides, fans would accept his explanation and calm down; it didn't happen.
By significantly promoting Travolta and Cyrus' involvement in "Bolt," Disney is committing a grave transgression against the public, itself, and its legacy.
The movie-going public - especially those going to Disney movies - want to step outside of their own reality for a couple of hours to experience something sincere as well as entertaining. As Stanley Kubrick put it, "A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings."
Disney's advertising for "Bolt" goes out of its way to keep you in reality by reminding you that, not only is the movie fiction, but the characters are really just voices supplied by actors - but not just any actors - high-priced celebrity actors.
Disney is trying way too hard to connect to audiences. People don't need to be told that a movie has a celebrity voice cast in order to be interested in a film. To see evidence of this simple fact, Disney need only look at its business friend Pixar.
The studio with the lamp has delivered hit after hit for Disney, and they have accomplished it all without trumpeting each picture's voice cast. Like the DreamWorks films and "Bolt," Pixar's films do tend to have a few celebrities in the cast, but they have the good sense to promote the characters instead of the voices behind them. And that makes all the difference.