New Dragon Tattoo Poster and Props to the Marketing

People might wonder why I keep posting the innovative marketing being done on Dragon Tattoo. But here is why I’m doing it. Last year, Fox Searchlight had the market cornered on cool marketing with Black Swan and 127 Hours. The Black Swan website was one of the prettiest and most disturbing movie sites on the web and a great tribute to the film. What I like about the Dragon Tattoo stuff is that it does for movie marketing what Apple did for electronics: it puts the art back into it. The Tumblr for Mouth Taped Shut, the Twitter feed to followed of the film and fans of Fincher and maybe even Trent Reznor, is a ground-up way to keep interest in the film but also to comment on its progress in an artful, progressive way. A metal poster shaped like a razor blade given out to people who follow the Twitter and Tumblr? It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen and I don’t think it’s entirely out of line to suggest that more movie marketing people think outside the box this way.

When media reports on the marketing, as far as I can tell, they simply talk about the gimmicks – the treasure hunt, the surprise photos that appear here or there but to me they are missing what’s cool about it, what’s new about it, what’s compelling about it. Moreover, the marketing suits the film itself. Why, because the main character of the film, Lisbeth Salandar, is herself a computer nerd great at tracking stuff down. To me, the marketing of this film should not only win an award at the end of this year but it would be something Lisbeth herself might approve of. Anyway, the poster that appeared moments ago on Mouth-taped-shut.com.