It was recently announced that J.J. Abrams will co-write, direct and produce the 11th 'Star Trek' film.  While 'Star Trek XI' might not necessarily be my movie of choice, I do predict there will be a large amount of hype preceding this film.

Paramount has already begun their marketing for this event.  Using the designation of the Enterprise as it's URL address, www.NCC-1701.com is already up and running as a promotional tool.  The website is extremely unique.  It is completely unbranded, not once mentioning 'Star Trek'.  There are four screens that are set up to look like security monitors, giving glimpes of what to expect from XI.

J.J. Abrams recently directed 'Cloverfield', another movie with several outstanding promotional techniques.  I'm more anxious to see how he handles his marketing with 'Star Trek' than I am to actually go and see the film after it's released.  However, this time, he is not the creator of the story and I do suppose he won't have as much imaginative freedom.

Only time will tell.

Over the past few days, it's been hard to turn on a television without hearing about the tragic passing of well-known actor Heath Ledger. He was found unconscious in his apartment building on the 23rd, and he passed away shortly after. For someone who was so successful and so young, this truly is the worst that could happen.

I chose to blog about this event after stumbling across a headline that jumped out at me. How would you market a movie with a dead star?, Radar Online asks it's readers of the new Batman film "The Dark Knight" in which Ledger stars. It caught my attention first because it did, in fact, discuss movie marketing, which is the subject of my blog. After reading it again however, I was disturbed at how casually it mentioned death. "Dead star". Seems like they could have been a bit more sympathetic.

However, it does raise a good point. How do you market a movie in which millions of dollars were invested after one of it's lead actors has passed away? Do you even market it at all? Or would cancelling the production be the best option?

Warner Brothers has a big decision to make concerning this "iffy" topic. The article mentions that they were planning to go international with "The Dark Knight's" marketing, which might not be appropriate now. They do raise a good point, however, in saying that despite how it's advertised, people are going to go see it anyway. Now, probably, more than ever in honor and memory of Ledger.

This truly is a sticky situation, and I'm curious what decisions Warner Brothers will make in the long run. It's definitely a topic I'm going to keep a close eye on, and I'll keep updating on here.

Welcome to my page! Over the course of the next few months, we will be looking further into some great - or not so great - campaigns in movie marketing.