Sell Sell Sell!

Currently running in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the Licensing International Expo – which sees marketers, brand owners, manufacturers and retailers all converge to view the latest trends, initiate deals and outline their inventory for the next year. This relates enormously to the world of film as studios display upcoming promotional art for films looking to cross-promote / cross-license with other like-minded companies and predominantly family-oriented (well, junk food) merchandise. The studios behind comic-book adaptations have particularly had this mentality ever since George Lucas revolutionised the process with success of small plastic figures.

As a result, the expo has revealed first glimpses of promotional materials for films on the 2012 slate giving us a taste of the ‘tone’ as marketing departments tie-in as much spoiler-free content as it can muster.

Thanks to anonymous tweeter ESQ (via Merrick at aintitcool) we have early logo art atop a cartoon image (!?) for The Dark Knight Rises (and a brochure here), Superman’s insignia from Zack Snyder’s (in pre-production) reboot, The Man of Steel; The Avengers aligned and Timur Bekmambetov’s co-production with Tim Burton, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, rumoured to star Trent Reznor.

Over at Collider, you can see early teasers for Men in Black 3, The Amazing Spider-Man and this ‘old encompassing new‘ collage from Paramount that has classics like Top Gun and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off displayed along side to-be-released films The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Adventures of Tintin.

The sizzle is certainly being sold if third-parties part with millions simply based on logos and type, as opposed to actual footage. Pity the now unemployed marketing boffin who invested in ‘sure bets’ like The Phantom, or The Spirit, based on logos alone… FAIL!