How to create a hit with a low budget and a clever strategy

Deadpool has always been a fairly popular Marvel character among hardcore fans, but relatively unknown to the rest of the world…until today. He’s a kind of quirkish, snarky anti-hero with a natural ability to break the fourth wall to communicate with his readers/audience, usually to mock the super hero cliché. Against all odds, Deadpool made it to the big screen, and compared to others in the same genre, with a tiny $58 million budget.

From the buzz and temperature of social conversations from these past weeks, looks like Deadpool is going to break some barriers over the weekend and the people at Fox and TSG(financiers of Fox live action movies) are going to be celebrating next week. Why? Because they had created a hit out of nowhere. And off course, the movie is pretty entertaining, despite the R rated label. Looks like someone at Fox marketing is planning and executing the right way some key strategic moves:

1.Release date

Deadpool probably will beat their weekend competition in this long president weekend.Zoolander 2 have drawn on nostalgia viewership and also a good campaign to cash on tickets to save the day. And How to be Single, the Dakota Johnson romantic flic, well…is just that. Deadpool release date feels like it was “under the radar” in the distribution timeline because there are literally not many movies for grown-up audiences to go. Big Oscars contenders have their on fight last week, Fifth Wave is a bore, and Zootopia is due next week, so Deadpool has a green wave to rise above the numbers. Plus, is Valentine weekend, with basically no “The Notebook” movies in sight. So this quirky potty-mouthed anti-hero is the royal ambassador of anti-valentine audiences.

2.Marketing Campaign

We all know that a box office hit need good PR and Marketing strategy, but honestly, most of the studios FAIL on these matter, and don’t tell me because of the budget. Advertising is not all about showing the movie trailer or character posters here and there. Its about building a brand. The marketing around the upcoming film has been nothing short of phenomenal, deserving of a glowing five out of five chimichangas. The trailers and promos for the film have all been tongue in cheek and absolutely hilarious, playing off of different trends and tropes to create unique communications. Seriously, if the ads are this good, just imagine what awaits fans in the theaters (eat your heart out Star Wars). Even they did a Valentine style campaign that is just brilliant

3.Social Media Strategy

We’re living in a postmodern, meme-culture, hero over saturated age. Audiences are CRAVING for some originality. No more remakes, no more sequels, no more cinematic universes with happy meal toys and epic superhero faces in a box of cornflakes. Deadpool itself is a bit of a snarky commentary on the over exposure of the genre, even an R-rated very violent superhero movie, but guess what, its unique. The audience age is that perfect 18-34 years old, which are highly social users. So, its no surprise that online conversations about Deadpool are hot on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, you name it, where fans can engage and engage others. The movie has been promoted virtually only through social media. In fact, the movie was only green-lit after test footage was “leaked” on social media. Fox released a red-band trailer unsuitable for TV, and the movie landed an R-rating. So marketing made up for the lack of television ads with their creative social media campaign. During the holidays, they spoofed the 12 Days of Christmas, with #12DaysofDeadpool, which spotlighted special content released each day. The content included downloadable videos, pics and emoji’s. And also took over Valentines with fake gushy romantic Ads all over the internet and street billboard.

 

The big man @ ComScore, Paul Dergarabedian, said this today about Deadpool: “This may be the first movie of 2016 that kind of elevates everything, and gets that box office momentum charged.” Sweet remark. Againits all about building a brand. 

The movie is also off to an impressive start overseas, with a tracking of more than $90 million for the weekend. Deapool is on fire at the box office today: it began playing at 7 p.m. in 2,975 locations; on Friday, it expanded into a total of 3,558 runs, including Imax locations. The Imax portion of Thursday night’s haul was $2.3 million, the sixth biggest preview ever for the large-format circuit.

Once ranked nr. 182nd out of 200 in the popularity list of Marvel properties, Deadpool is on its way to become a success. The movie probably step over the heels of Guardians of the Galaxy ($94.3 million) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier($95 million) and likely score the biggest R-rated opening of all time. Tip of the hat to the marketing team @ Fox.

Deadpool, starring the sexy-mouthy Ryan Reynolds, beautiful Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller and Gina Cara, all directed by Tim Miller.