Lionsgate Takes Fresh Approach to Promote 'The Hunger Games' at Comic-Con - New York Times

Lionsgate Takes Fresh Approach to Promote 'The Hunger Games' at Comic-Con - New York Times

SAN DIEGO â€" Trot some stars onto a stage. Get a gushy blogger or aspiring comedian to ask canned questions. Dim the lights and show footage.

Hollywood has long clung to that promotional formula at Comic-Con International, the fan convention that draws 130,000 people here every July. But this year one studio decided the tried-and-true approach had grown dull and ineffective: too expected, too easily drowned out by the growing Comic-Con din.

So, to promote “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay â€" Part 2,” Lionsgate on Thursday pushed past Comic-Con’s crowd-control rules, parading 34 costumed kettle drummers into the roughly 6,500-seat hall that forms the convention’s epicenter. And to make its presen tation even more lively, the studio took the rare step of securing a well-known professional â€" Conan O’Brien â€" as the M.C.

Lionsgate also served up Jennifer Lawrence and her “Hunger Games” co-stars; introduced fake “Mockingjay” footage (essentially propaganda from the point of view of the movie’s District 13 rebels); and then presented fans with an exclusive peek at a real “Mockingjay” trailer, titled “We March Together.” (Hence the drummers.)

“I feel like there doesn’t even have to be a movie now,” Mr. O’Brien joked, as the crowd thundered its approval to the thundering trailer.

Comic-Con has become increasingly congested as a marketing platform as television companies have swarmed the convention alongside movie studios, video game makers, toy companies and, yes, comic-book publishers. The goal is to create buzz among hard-core fans that, with a little luck, spreads throughout the world on fan blogs and social media networks.

This year, because the timing of the convention did not fit with film release plans, a trio of big movie companies (Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment) decided to stay home. But the San Diego Convention Center and surrounding streets were still choked with what seemed like more marketers than ever. Vying for attention on Thursday were a half-dozen sign twirlers for the Subway sandwich chain, Muppets mounted on trolley cars and “Game of Thrones” pedicabs.

Mr. O’Brien, who was in town to tape his TBS late-night show, essentially rebranded the convention for himself. The big Marriott next to the convention center was wrapped with images of Mr. O’Brien as Funko toys, replete with orange pompadour. Shirts depicting hi m in superhero garb and fishnet tights popped up on the street. He also rode the streets in a “Mad Max”-style tank.

If Comic-Con is the Super Bowl of location-based entertainment marketing, Lionsgate is a star quarterback. The studio has consistently cut through the noise, whether reintroducing a post-gubernatorial Arnold Schwarzenegger as an “Expendables” star in 2012, or experimenting with live Internet streaming to promote the “Saw” series way back in the (relative) digital dark age of 2009.

Summit Entertainment, now a Lionsgate label, broke ground here with stunts for its “Twilight” movies, which added frenzied teenage girls to the Comic-Con boys club and declared the arrival of young-adult female action, which has become a staple.

Not every foray has worked. Footage from “The S pirit” prompted walkouts from Lionsgate’s presentation in 2008. In 2010, Comic-Con attendees lined up at the Lionsgate booth to be trapped inside a coffin to promote the movie “Buried,” with video of their confined experience then posted on Facebook. But the film flopped when released a few months later.

Still, Lionsgate usually finds a way, often by keeping fans guessing. Last year, the studio decided to skip a convention center presentation altogether, instead taking over part of the nearby Hard Rock Hotel in partnership with Samsung. They opened a “Hunger Games”-themed bakery (sample item: evil Capitol cronuts) and photographed fans with holograms of characters from “Mockingjay â€" Part 1.”

On Thursday, the first full day of the 46th Comic-Con, attendees could also visit a Lionsgate booth to have their faces digitally tattooed with red “Mockingj ay” war paint, just like the movie’s stars have in a newly released poster series. Participants were emailed photos of the results.

“The days of ‘here’s our booth, here’s your key chain’ are long past,” said Tim Palen, Lionsgate’s chief brand officer. “We want fans to have an experience at our booth that is shareable.” Mr. Palen added that, to win at Comic-Con these days, you have to “put on a real show.”

To be fair, innovating at Comic-Con is not that easy. The organizers of the gathering have a lot of rules. “Please do not use any of the following words: money, cash, food or emergency,” the group advised volunteers of acceptable phone and walkie-talkie communications in a pre-event email.

Convention overseers retain final say over everything from the height of trade show booths to what happe ns in the aisles of Hall H, that 6,500-seat venue. Securing clearance for the drummers was a weekslong negotiation, perhaps even trickier than managing sandwich flow in the backstage hospitality suite. “After the Con is over, please don’t store items that won’t last, like food,” warned that email.

Lionsgate’s hourlong presentation on Thursday was not seamless. But Mr. O’Brien stepped in whenever the energy started to dip, at one point poking fun at Lionsgate and, later, bluntly admitting that he found it annoying when a character in the last “Hunger Games” movie went looking for her cat.

By the time Ms. Lawrence, renowned for her candid interview moments, hit her stride, the crowd was rapt. What had she personally taken away from any of her roles?

“The drinking really rubbed off on me from ‘American Hustle,’ ” she shot b ack.

“Pump, pump, pump brakes,” she counseled herself.

Lionsgate Takes Fresh Approach to Promote 'The Hunger Games' at Comic-Con - New York Times
Rating: 100% based on 975 ratings. 91 user reviews.