In a time before Twitter, movie promotion was simple. Stories stuck to the script and trailer voiceovers intoned the usual cliches without shame or deviation. Now ownership has shifted from the studios to the fans, and with it the balance of power. No longer can the people be kept out of the picture. No longer will the crowd chow down without complaint whatever slop they’re served. They must be made to feel it’s a bit bespoke, and that they are part of the process.
A hero will rise – and that hero is whichever genius in a Hollywood marketing department it was who began the trend for blockbuster posters to invoke the royal “we”. Inclusivity is a savvy move. It means promotion can come on all chummy while actually allowing studios to wrest back control, to direct the conversation and hijack the democratisation.
“We fight back” was the nuts-and-bolts tagline for ropy sci-fi The 5th Wave. Captain America: Civil War preferred “Divided we fall” – a rallying cry with the flattering suggestion that all of us are superheroes. “We all live or we all die” was the overegged attempt by The Finest Hours to get us invested in a coastguard drama. “We’re going to need bigger pants,” observes the poster for the forthcoming Bridget Jones’s Baby, making us all somehow responsible for sourcing fictional knickers.
But the most concerted campaign to call on this collectivism is for Independence Day 2, the belated sequel to the aliens-destroy-America movie. This month will see the return of the original cast from Roland Emmerich’s exploding-helicopter classic – save for Will Smith, who is said to have been too expensive. Just in case you had assumed another alien invasion wasn’t directly your fault, think again. “We had 20 years to prepare,” tuts one poster. “So did they.” Another reminds us: “We always knew they’d come back.”
It’s smart, it’s snappy – and it’s quite stressful when it’s so high-stakes. This is not just like failing to fully tighten the washer in the almost certain knowledge that the tap will one day leak again. It’s reneging on your duties to humanity, and every other species too. You haven’t just let us down; you’ve let yourself down. Is rapping knuckles the best way to get fingers reaching into wallets? We shall see.
Go wild in the country
If you happen to own a country pile, the best way to avoid inheritance tax is to allow access to the grounds – either in collaboration with, say, the National Trust or by opening the gates yourself, for a fee. There is no financial incentive – no exponential tax benefit – to open for longer than the minimum required. Which is why Rousham House, near Banbury, is so strange.
Its gardens, designed by William Kent, are fantastic: beds of foxgloves and poppies, big river, crested newts, grottoes, longhorn cattle and a 17th-century dovecote like a Parthenon high rise. To enter, you put a fiver in a machine and walk round the house. No restrictions, no signs, no shop, no caff – just a loo with a huge vase of flowers. You can do this 365 days of the year. Do it soon, lest they twig.
A list of real honour
I’ve just been to the funeral of someone who spent 365 days a year more admirably than anyone I’ve ever met. For six hours a day Netta Phillips helped residents in sheltered housing in Strood, Kent; she spent another four working for a charity sending aid to Kosovo, and performed myriad other invisible acts of kindness – all with endless good humour and dignity, without remuneration or a birthday honour from the Queen. Official recognition is nice; a packed church of people singing your praises may be better.
