Universal Studios has decided not to hold screenings for Internet influencers in its marketing campaign for director Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
The studio is taking a pass on “word-of-mouth” reviews among fan sites, influencers, and bloggers and will pre-screen only for the pros, a report says. It may be a sign that the studio is highly confident about the film and is feeling they don’t need the boost of Internet chatter. But it could also be an effort to prevent early leaks that could inflame accusations of “wokeness” that are already dogging the film.
Over the last decade, studios have increasingly included influencers and fan sites in pre-screenings to bump up positive discussions about a film ahead of an opening as the fans are usually more positive about a film, especially those that studios hope will be a blockbuster, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
However, quite a lot of criticism of the influencer and fan site screenings has grown in recent years. Many have come to feel that the positivity bump is too manufactured as early fan reviews rave about films that ultimately end up being poorly received by professional critics and general audiences alike.
THR notes that the upcoming release of Supergirl was wildly praised as “the best blockbuster of the summer!” by one influencer, yet professional critics have since been much more negative about the film.
Even Universal was stung by the overly positive early reviews by influencers, fans, and bloggers. Its recent Steven Spielberg film, Disclosure Day, was a subject of high praise by many influencers, but the movie earned subsequently less enthusiastic reviews by professional critics.
Universal’s decision to skip the fan sites and the influencers may signal that the film industry is beginning to turn its focus back to professional reviewers.
Whatever Universal’s motivation for skipping the influencers and fan sites with The Odyssey, the film has already been panned for apparent wokeness and being overly modernized far ahead of its release.
The film, based on the nearly 3,000-year-old Greek tale of the same name by Homer, features Matt Damon as Greek warrior Odysseus as he makes his way home from the Trojan War, back to the Kingdom of Ithaca to save the lives of his wife and son. Also appearing in the epic take are popular actors Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattison, and more.
But Nolan is being blasted for his costuming decisions of generic or modernistically stylized clothing and armor, for writing dialog featuring modern vernacular, and for his woke casting choices.
Figures as prominent as Elon Musk have slammed Nolan for his woke casting of African actress Lupita Nyong’o to play Helen of Troy, a character who is clearly not a black woman in the source material. In another case, a Greek culture news site ripped the film for neglecting to have a single Greek actor in a film based on one of the most famous Greek tales in all of human history.
The controversies have already driven expectations for the film downward. According to The Quorum, a company that tracks enthusiasm for upcoming movies, interest in The Odyssey is plummeting as the controversies grow.
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