Bringing the (Movie) Audience to Attention

Viacom had an exclusive deal to hype the raunchy R-Rated new comedy, Movie 43, starring Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, and Richard Gere (really). The movie opens today.

“Prepare for a motion picture experience that’s unforgivable!”

movie posterMovie 43 will riff up blacks, the blind, dwarves, high school boys, women, homeless, homeless women, and pretty much every other politically incorrect group except straight middle-class white guys.

Warning. Once you’ve seen this, you can’t unsee it.

Viacom, parent company of Comedy Central, MTV, BET and VH1, promotes its own Paramount Studios content vigorously in-house. I’m thinking they saw a nice tie-in to get paid to advertise a movie that stars (alphabetically) Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Kate Bosworth, Gerard Butler, Josh Duhamel, Anna Faris, Richard Gere, Hugh Jackman, Justin Long, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Grace Moretz, Chris Pratt, Liev Schreiber, Seann William Scott, Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Patrick Warburton, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet, and more on all of their cable channels.

You may have seen the world premiere of the film’s PG trailer on Tosh.0. He gave his audience the first link for the real trailer (caution, YouTube will make you sign in to see it). That led to some 4 million views. Spike plastered the arena at a live mixed-martial arts fight with pictures. MTV is running a “Balls Out Uncensored Weekend Sweepstakes.”

But wait! There’s more!

Movie 43 is also advertising on hardcore porn sites including YouPorn, the popular but sort of XXX-rated YouTube.

It’s not the first time. Viacom’s Paramount Vantage unit paved the way with 2010’s Luke Wilson movie Middle Men. The ads then and now weren’t just those flashing banners to drag your attention away from the regular content. These commercials are full trailers and more.

YouPorn, the free pornographic video sharing website, is advertising supported. Launched in 2006, the Porn 2.0 (Web 2.0) site has become the most popular adult website on the internet and is one of the top 100 sites worldwide. The Top-100 include Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr and Google, and now perhaps the No Puffin Perspective. YouPorn consumes more than three terabytes of bandwidth daily.

Probably shouldn’t search for the trailer from the office although “searching for the trailer and this just, um, popped up” strikes me as a unique and fully excusable reason to visit a steamy site.

On the plus side, here’s a movie with no character and a potty load of brainless funnies. It’s very slick and wildly offensive. And it’s advertised on YouPorn. I think we have a winner.

One thought on “Bringing the (Movie) Audience to Attention

  1. Ghawd! If it’s anything like Movie 42 I won’t survive it. I had a woodie for weeks after seeing that one.

    — George

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