Bad Poster for Peter Jackson's 'The Lovely Bones'

I'm a bit critical of movie posters, more than the average guy or gal. So I ask that you bear that in mind when I hand down my verdict for the new one-sheet for Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. This poster sucks.
Poster courtesy of Yahoo! I will add a caveat, however: It's likely that because of the small size and obvious low resolution we're missing some subtleties we would otherwise catch, but I still think the overall design is just way too bland. The stuff with the tree is nice, although it should be bigger. I mean, look at that dead space between the acting and directing credits. Just wasteful. Also not a big fan of the bold face screenplay credits. If anything, I think it would work better if they ditched the screenwriters altogether and moved Jackson's directing credit to the lower right hand corner over the DreamWorks logo. I don't know what I expected exactly, but I know I expected more. The trailer was a little better, but not a great sales piece, either, in my estimation. And if you're new around here, you might wonder what any of this has to do with the movie. It doesn't. But it does have to do with convincing people to see the movie, and that's why it's always puzzling to me that studios accept marketing materials that just don't measure up. In this case, there's just very little to grab onto. If you're unfamiliar with the story the image makes no sense, you can't tell who the running figure is (it almost resembles one of the Wild Things), and the only thing it really emphasizes is Peter Jackson. That's not a bad thing to emphasize, certainly, but how does this sell Lovely Bones to anyone who doesn't know what it's about?

Comments

[Orinn]

The tree is the best part, no reason it could not be the center piece of the poster.

[SEAN]

reminds me of The Big Fish film poster, with Ewan Mcgregor I think...

Looks bad yeah I agree, pretty bad actually, I mean their talking Oscar hopes and this does not reflect that whatsoever...

the actors names, actually, the whole text needs to be bigger, it doesnt even really endorse the numerous well known actors in the film, b/c fans need to see those names, I mean their the ones buying tickets

[The Observer]

why don't you take a closer look in the sky, jollyman.

great poster.

[Nicky]

This poster is great. totally haunting, mysterious and ethereal. exactly what it needs to be. the space between the cast and title treatment is heaven, i thought. it's a teaser poster -- there's no billing block. meant to tease, not fill every empty pixel with some image. I think it's very effective. I cannot wait to see this movie!

[Kim]

Maybe there's such a big space below the tree, because there's such an important part of the story that happens under the ground.