Week 10: SWOT

Strengths:

-First and foremost, Powers (Bendis) has a fairly large fan-base to begin with. After all, Deena Pilgrim has been voted up to 24^th among the top 50 Comic Book Characters of All Time on Empire Magazine [1]. This magazine is the “biggest selling film magazine” with a circulation of “194, 016” in 2009 according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation [2]. As we intend to remain generally true to the texts, we have little worry of alienating Bendis’ fans.

-Moreover, our film noir style which blends detective drama with superhero elements has the ability to draw audiences from both those demographics. Shane Black may draw those interested in detective drama based on his work on the Lethal Weapon films as well as his noir detective film, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Black, 2005). Additionally, Black’s work on Ironman 3 (Black, 2011) may attract those interested in Superhero films. Our texts ability to expand effectively across genre allows for an expansion of our demographic putting it among our strengths.

-Our plan to debut the film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is also used to our strengths. As we desire to create meaningful, critically acclaimed films we have decided that a film festival is an excellent place to debut. Toronto is one of the film capitals of Canada and is swarmed with many students of film (according to TIFF [3] which includes a Student Film Showcase). Therefore, many of those among the crowd will be in search of deeply analyzing films such as ours which includes religious themes (see our blog for full details, “Week 3: Beyond the Surface”). Using the God complexes found in those with super powers, we can express the communities desire to restrain these figures paralleled with a desire to keep politicians in check similar to recent strife in Egypt. Insight such as this will excite film students searching for implications in films; the students will then spread word and build word of mouth hype for our franchise. Our film 1 synopsis contains further depth upon the matter of insight in our film; however, its importance among our strengths is merely to impress film students at the TIFF perpetrating word of mouth.

-Moreover, social significance is becoming a more desired aspect in film. For example, the nihilism in The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008) attributed to its ability to rise above the average popcorn film and achieve not only critical acclaim, but also success at the box office [4]. Nava cites many films explaining that “today’s audience does seem to genuinely associate gloom and nihilism with realism, insightfulness, and overall good quality in film.” Our use of film noir coupled with bleak insightfulness is becoming more and more desirable for audiences.  

Weaknesses:

-We, unfortunately, also risk slipping into the background of the many films which create a dark, nihilistic insightfulness. It is a popular tendency for films to illustrate a dark nihilism in order to score at the box-office [4]. Of course, we try to avoid slipping below summer box offices through our TIFF debut in the September. Our theatrical release will only occur following the word of mouth garnered at the festival. This gives our film an opportunity to portray the darker tone at a safer time, minimizing the possibility of being swept beneath many other dark films.

-We intend to conduct a survey to confirm this, but we fear our film may alienate certain older and female demographics. Detective and superhero films such as ours do not typically appeal to those outside the 16-30 male demographic. While the younger males are the primary film viewer demographic [5], it still poses a weakness to our film to alienate others. In an attempt to minimize this weakness, we intend to make an opportunity of the Mad Men series which airs late summer to early fall. As John Hamm is the star of our film, advertisements played during the Mad Men episodes could draw some fans from the demographics we may otherwise expect to alienate. We can hope to expand our demographic in ways such as this; however, this film cannot reach all audiences, especially considering an amount of cursing and violence that may lead to a PG-13 or possible 14-A rating.

Opportunities:

-As The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012) will be released in June, the DVD release will be aligned with our TIFF debut in September of 2012. This allows us opportunity to compare Powers with this film as we share the darker tendencies of the film. The DVD release of the Nolan’s nihilistic film may spark interest in theatrical audiences desire to indulge in darker movies such as ours. Moreover, the TIFF is held in the fall allowing our film to parallel the darkening seasons drawing in an audience looking for a film that is topical of the weather.

-The theatrical release following out TIFF debut would be early the following year, just in time for the Academy Awards and various other film award ceremonies. As it is in our mission statement to create prestigious and meaningful films, we intend to win awards. Thus, if successful in following through, the award season creates opportunity for our film to be recognized by wider audiences who would then wish to see our film. Our film, therefore, has the opportunity of creating a similar effect to the recent success of The King’s Speech (Hooper, 2011). The film’s nominations for the Oscars led to a “revenue surge” in the following weeks [6]. Award nominations lead to exposure, therefore, our desire to create award winning films will effectually help our films to gain a boost at the box-office provided the films are in theatres during the rush of award season. 

Threats:

-We must also soberly admit that Nolan’s DVD release also poses a threat to drown our film. If our films are too closely similar, it could lead to flak labelling our film a “cheap remake.”

-A common threat for films is the issue of pirated copies. However, the DVD remains attractive to those who hope to attain the many artefacts offered [7]. As our film arises from a culture of fans who maintain worth in collectable items, the DVD holds a value that is not shared in pirated copies. In the same manner fans choose to buy comics rather than read them online, we hope fans may buy the DVD rather than pirate the film online. Moreover, assuming our comparison to Scott Pilgrim (Wright, 2010) is accurate, our dark cult film will most likely gather it’s followers through DVD after it has had time to fully grow it’s fan-base as discussed in the previous blog (“Week 9: Scott Pilgrim vs. The Powers”). Thus, we recognize pirating as a threat, but maintain that our DVD popularity may surpass it. The primary threat that could arise from pirating would occur between our TIFF debut and theatrical release. Students may spread word of this film immediately following the TIFF debut causing many viewers to be anxious—leading them to pirated copies before the international theatrical release.

[1] “The 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters.” Empire Magazine. Web. 25 Mar. 2011. <http://www.empireonline.com/50greatestcomiccharacters/default.asp?c=24>

[2] “ABC Circulation Figures January-June 2009.” Bauer Media. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.<http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Press-Office/News/ABC-Circulation-Figures-January-June-2009/>

[3] Toronto International Film Festival. <http://tiff.net/>

[4] Nava, William. “Batman: The Dark Knights Nihilism: Trend of Cynicism Infects Box-Office” 1 Aug. 2008. Suite 101. Web. 25 Mar. 2011. <http://www.suite101.com/content/the-dark-knights-nihilism-a62623>

[5] McDonald, Paul and Janet Wasko (eds.) The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Publisher Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2008.

[6] McClintock, Pamela. “’The King’s Speech’ Gets Big Box-Office Bump.” 26 Jan. 2011. The Hollywood Reporter. Web. 25 Mar. 2011. <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kings-speech-big-oscar-box-76414>

[7] Denison, Rayna. “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! No, It’s a DVD!: Superman, Smallville, and the production (of) Melodrama.”