96. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Stars:  Tim Robbins (Andy Dufresne),  Morgan Freeman (Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding), Bob Gunton (Warden Samuel Norton )

Director:  Frank Darabont

Awards / Honors

• 7 Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Actor (Morgan Freeman), Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Mixing
• #23 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers list (2006)
• #72 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)

Genre:  Drama

Running Time:  2 Hours, 22 Minutes

Format:  DVD, Blu-ray

Odyssey Rating:  4 1/2 Stars (John - 5 Stars, Beth - 4 Stars)

John's Take

It is easy to forget after being bombarded repeatedly by the same 30 second commercials for movies like Salt, or The Expendables, or Scott Pilgrim vs. The Word that marketing is not just an annoying part of the film industry, but a necessary one.  Every year Hollywood movie distributors spend literally billions of dollars to buy paid advertising – TV commercials, newspaper ads, etc.  Why?  Well, because unless it is a mega-blockbuster, films don’t typically linger in theaters for more than four to six weeks, which means that the movie distributors have a very limited window in which to make as much money as they can.  Theaters just don’t have the ability to wait for a movie to build an audience by word-of-mouth anymore.  Granted, film promotion is definitely a double-edged sword.  The emphasis on focus-group reaction and profitability estimates certainly can impact the artistic quality of film in a negative way.  On the other hand, if no one sees a film, can it be considered art at all?

The Shawshank Redemption is a prime example of how film promotion can be both helpful and detrimental to a motion picture.  There is no doubt that Shawshank is one of those films that everyone loves.  For example, it is currently # 1 on IMDb’s list of best reviewed movies.  It is one of Rodger Ebert’s “Great Films”, and while always a film-critic favorite, this film has started to grow more highly regarded than either Forrest Gump or Pulp Fiction, the two most critically acclaimed films the year of Shawshank’s release.  Time is certainly being kind to this film.  With such glowing, nearly-universal praise, it is easy to forget that this film was a box office flop.  After its initial theatrical run, the film was about 15 million dollars in the hole.  35 million to produce and it made only about 20 million or so.  The film was such a box office disappointment that when asked about it later, director Frank Darabont, stated: “We couldn’t beg people to go see this movie when it first came out.”  Why was such a critically acclaimed movie like The Shawshank Redemption (and a surprisingly large number of other films on this list) such a financial failure?

The answer:  the film had a bad marketing campaign.

The number of people I have met over the years, that when discussing this film, tell me that they saw this film in the theater is surprisingly high.  But considering how little money this movie made while in the theaters, I have either been very lucky to have known a large number of sophisticated movie-goers, or some of them were lying – they saw it on cable or on VHS just like the rest of us.  Now, the reason I didn’t see this movie in the theaters is probably the same reason most of you out there didn’t see it in the movie theaters:  we didn’t have any idea what this movie was about and I didn’t like the title.  Go out to Wikipedia and take a look at the theatrical poster for this movie.  Now, combine that image with the rather cryptic sounding title “The Shawshank Redemption” and try to divine what this movie is about.  Not exactly easy is it?  The point of a promotional campaign is to convey to you what genre movie falls into (action, horror, comedy, romance, etc.), and some idea of what the movie is about.  Can you honestly tell me you can derive any idea of what the plot is from the title and the poster alone?

Granted, a title and a movie poster does not an entire film promotion make.  If we take a look at the poster for a movie I mentioned earlier, Salt, it doesn’t exactly portray a great deal of information either.  However, the movie trailers clearly do.  I haven’t seen Salt, but based on what I have learned form the commercials, I could tell you that Angelina Jolie plays a CIA operative that is on the run from her fellow spies because she may or may not be a Russian sleeper agent.  I can tell you that it is an action movie with lots of stunts and explosions, and that Angelina appears scantily-clad in at least one scene.  But then again, I can’t help but know this.  The trailers for this movie have been appearing on my TV every 15 minutes for the last month, so it is OK that poster is simply some sort of simple teaser and the title of the film is rather silly.  Now, in Shawshank’s defense, its trailers do a pretty good job of letting you know what the movie is about as well, but can any of you out there actually remember ever seeing them?  I can’t.  In fact, I went out and specifically searched for the trailers and watched a few.  I can honestly say I don’t remember ever seeing any of them.  Not in the theaters, not on TV, never.

What’s the lesson here?  While you may have to deal with some “backlash” issues if you inundate me with advertisements for your film, I absolutely won’t see it if I don’t know what it is about, so you better make sure your marketing campaign reaches me.  I think that is the case with most people – they won’t go spend money on a movie that they know nothing about.  So with a media campaign that clearly failed to reach anyone, all people had to help them make the decision on whether or not to see this film was the title (cryptic) and the movie poster / newspaper ad (usually the same image).  Considering the resulting box office totals, I suspect that most conversations about seeing this movie went something like – “The Shawshank Redemption? I have no idea what that is about.  Let go see that Tom Hanks movie instead, the previews for that looked great …”

So, what transformed this failure into such a critical success?  The Oscars.  Again, as much as many film snobs like to berate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as simply a marketing device (sort of like I did back in my Sunrise post), one cannot argue the effect that the “Oscar bump” had on this film.  The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for seven Oscars, but didn’t win one – it, along with Pulp Fiction had a hard time competing with the award-accumulating Forrest Gump juggernaut.  However, with a re-tooled Oscar-centric marketing campaign the movie garnered about another 10 million or so in box office receipts, still not enough to break even on production costs, but the nominations had helped get even more people to see it and that lead to good word-of-mouth, which in turn helped build an audience for the film.  With a quick release into the home video market, along with a heavy rotation on cable television – and Presto! – one of the first classics of the home video age is born.  The Shawshank Redemption, a film that tanked at the box office, in part due to a poor marketing campaign, went on to become profitable and beloved due to a better tuned one.

So, does that mean I think that the ultimate success of this film is due solely to the correction of a bad marketing plan?  Of course not.  Ultimately, this film has become a classic because we all see ourselves as Andy Dufresne.  We all, at times, feel like we are trapped in our own little Shawshank Prisons, so we all root for Andy as he tries to survive in his.  No, marketing didn’t make The Shawshank Redemption a good movie, but bad marketing nearly prevented any of us from seeing it, and that certainly would have been a crime.

The Shawshank Redemption gets a ranking of 5 Stars.

John

BETH'S TAKE:

Morgan Freeman is one of the best actors ever. I can't think of one movie I have watch with him that I did not like. This one included. My one and only complaint about this movie...IT'S WAY TOO LONG!! Once I thought the end was approaching...NOPE, it wasn't!

But overall...very very good movie..highly recommend watching it!