Marketing and Distribution

To make a film successful, you need to have a successful marketing campaign. The marketing campaign is organised by the distribution company.
The roles of the distribution company include:

• Deciding what films get made
• Make sure as many people as possible see the film
• Negotiating the release date of the film and the site of exhibition
• Sends trailers to cinemas
• Negotiates budget and pays for advertising and marketing

The exhibition of film primarily involves the ownership, management and operation of cinemas. The distribution companies relationship with the exhibition involves:

• Securing a contract which agrees the percentage of gross ticket sales are sold to the distributor
• Divides the rest of the money between; the cinema, the production company and 3rd party agents
• Observes exhibition (screening times, etc.)
• Makes sure prints are returned to stop illegal downloads

The main aspects of marketing and distribution are advertising through;

• The media (this includes putting trailers on social media, adverts on TV, websites, posters, etc.)
• Market research throughout the making and distributing of the film 
• PR (Public relations)(interviews, appearances, maintaining a brand image)
• Point of Sale (posters in cinemas, etc.)

All media (media, TV, print and music) are owned by a company who own the right to publish and distribute it to make a profit. When a book, comic or a play is made into a film, the rights have to be bought as it is their "intellectual property" (The rights to make the first 4 Harry Potter films were bought for $1 dollars

The Dark Knight 

The Dark Knight was released in 2008 and was part of the Batman reboot of what became a trilogy with Christian Bale playing Batman. The Dark Knight was directed by Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight has one of the most elaborate marketing strategies to date as Warner Bros used all kinds of media including "cross media convergence". The opening sequence was shot using IMAX technology, this was the first time that a major feature film was shnot on IMAX cameras, breaking box office records for IMAX and bringing in about $6.3 million from 94 cinemas in the US and Canada over the opening weekend. The Dark Knight cost about £14.5 million to make overall. It was distributed to 4,366 cinemas all over the US and Canada. Warner Bros tried to prevent piracy but after 38 hours of the film being released an illegal downloadable copy was put online. The film was released on DVD and there was 5 versions released, these were;

• A one disc DVD
• A two disc special edition DVD
• A two disc blu ray edition
• A special edition blu ray with a statuette of Batman
• A four disk Batman Begins/ The Dark Knight edition DVD

At the film premier instead of the traditional red carpet the carpet was black and the cast and crew dressed in black in honour of the late Heath Ledger who played the Joker in the film. Outside of the premier was the Batmobile.

The Dark Knight Marketing Campaign

A teaser trailer was released during showings of I Am Legend

Film Posters were released to promote the film

Warner Bros set up a viral marketing campaign to promote the release of the film. This included setting up a website for the films fictional newspaper called "The Gotham Times". This interested fans as they had to earn what they wanted as fans had to send emails to reveal the first official photo of the Joker. 42 Entertainment sent fans on a scavenger hunt to unlock a teaser trailer. Fans had to uncover clues at certain locations across the US and take photos. This revealed a new photo of the Joker and an audio clip. Fans could also submit photos of themselves dressed as the Joker and get sent a copy of the fictional newspaper "The Gotham Times". Burger King linked up with The Dark Knight to producer a burger called the Dark Whopper and also released toys with the kids meals

A Batman game called Arkham Asylum was released and became the biggest selling game of the year and benefited the release of the film. On the Warner Bros shop there was Batman merchandise released for fans to buy. These included shirts and hoodies to phone cases and cups.