The geeky guru’s over at Den of Geek take a look at Solo: A Star Wars Story and the distinct lack of marketing the film has received so far.
Of course, we all know the Solo situation is a fairly unique scenario, with reshoots, directorial changes, recasting and the like, but with 124 days to go Disney and Lucasfilm are cutting it fine. If they want to get brand awareness high and make it clear to the general cinema-going public that this is a prequel featuring a young, non-Harrison Ford Han Solo then they need to get motoring.
What’s unusual, though, is just how quiet Disney-Lucasfilm have been when it comes to marketing Solo. We only have to briefly look back at the timeline of Rogue One to see the difference: the first teaser trailer for that Star Wars spin-off emerged on the 7th April, with a high-profile debut on Good Morning America. The full trailer followed on the 11th August, coinciding with the Olympic games that summer; by then, we’d already had the first poster at that year’s Star Wars celebration in June, and an hour of up-beat interviews and teases at the same event. The third and final trailer arrived on the 13th October, exactly two
months before Rogue One’s release on the 13th December.
Leaving out all the peripheral stuff like the title reveal and casting news, the marketing campaign for Rogue One therefore began a full eight months before its release, with the teaser trailer showing off director Gareth Edwards’ grittier take on the Star Wars universe. Indeed, the visual teases came even earlier, with the first image of the cast making its debut in August 2015.
At the time of writing, it’s the 18th January, exactly four months and one week until Solo’s scheduled release. Thus far, the hype machine has apparently remained stuck in neutral; all we’ve had to go on this year is a synopsis, which doesn’t really tell us much we didn’t know back in July 2015: it’s a prequel about a young Han Solo, and how he became the loveable rogue Luke first met in A New Hope.
Let’s hope there’s some movement on this before the month is out, as we’re itching to see some content.
