Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Guns in Hollywood Marketing: Good or Bad?

Well, this is certain to have ruffled some feathers.

Check out this first look at Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runneras American Assassin Mitch Rapp. Do you see what I see?

How could you not, right? That is one big gun that young man is carrying – and, for once, I am not being a facetious.

You probably know by now that Jason Bourne took a bit of a stumble earlier this summer, when the powers that be’s marketing materials were called into question for their depiction of that kind of weapon at a really poor time to be depicting ’em in movie posters or to appear to be glorifying their use. I can’t imagine how anyone didn’t learn a lesson there, but here we are, with the O’Brien – who headlines an upcoming adaptation of the Vince Flynn series of books, as a CIA black-ops recruit mentored by a Cold War vet (Michael Keaton) co-investigating a wave of apparently random attacks on military and civilian targets for Sanaa Lathan – all gunned up and ready for action.

Obviously, someone thought this would entice us into putting this one on our lists. Alas, if I – who don’t usually much care for the sort of controversy that engulfed Matt Damon’s latest outing as our favorite amnesiac spy – thought of all of this at first glance, then you can sure other people may have had a similar reaction. Or worse.

I will reserve judgment, as always, on this one, especially because Taylor Kitsch is playing the bad guy. However, I will continue to disbelief the incompetence of this badly taken first step.

Photo: Deadline.com.

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