'Night at the Museum' Poster Should Try Harder

We already point a wary eye at sequels, but this poster for Night at the Museum: War Zone: Smithsonian or whatever just underscores the problem. All they've appeared to have done is taken the first movie, looked at what their little audience test results told them worked and made the same movie again...only bigger. Ben Stiller is back, of course - although should the series continue, I expect he wouldn't return for a third Night - and he's joined by Amy Adams and a bunch of guys who will probably be on the Regis Philbin version of Password before too long. But hey, as long as we're getting the A-OK from Lincoln, that's good enough, right?
Poster courtesy of IMP Awards Truly miserable. That's just a lazy poster right there. I didn't hate the original flick for what it was trying to do, but I have a feeling one will be plenty.

Comments

[Lost Wilson]

Studios keep making this HUGE mistake: They have a big hit around the holidays, when there are very few films around, and they automatically think there is this huge public connection to the property, so they move it to the crowded event movie-laden Summer market only to find out that people didn't care as much as they thought they did.

I think Narnia had this problem.

Night at the Museum feels like it belongs in November or December and yet we are getting it when people will be paying to see Star Trek, T-4, and a litany of other films of a much higher pedigree. It should have modest returns, but come on...This isn't Tropic Thunder 2. Stiller's resurgence in that film doesn't translate to this audience. Are they thinking that there are Shrek dollars to made here?

PLUS: How much you wanna make a bet we see a trailer for Meet the Parents 3: Fokk U?

[Will]

Ooooooh. I LOVE the Meet the Parents Movies. What's the new one about???

[Lost Wilson]

So glad you asked, loser. The setup for Fokk U is simple. Greg Focker, depressed by the economic downturn loses his job, and with limited options decides to go back to school. 17 years has passed since the last Fokking movie (yeah, I borrowed that from Mummy: Curse of the Dragon Emperor, what of it?), so young Gaylord Fokker is now 18 and starting classes at the same University. Of course the University is Arizona State (Phoenix Film Commission landed the production, I think.) and they are having problems with the New Dean, played not by Jeremy Piven, but none other than Robert DeNiro as Jack Byrnes.

Hijinks ensue.

(Note to Universal Studios: Please mail all royalty checks for this amazing idea to Colin Boyd. He'll make sure Lost Wilson gets compensation minus his hefty yet reasonable comission. Thanks.)

[Asana]

You really don't like the stand around group shot posters do you Mr. Boyd? It's the sequel to a kid-friendly family flick, .how much harder does this poster need to try really? Obviously a poster needs to convey... something but for a movie such as this what should we expect? Would you have it be some overly dramatic closeup of Stiller's face where you see some bit of the film's action reflected in his iris?

Ok sure that might be more interesting than the poster they came up with but again does a poster for a film such as this need to try harder? With this poster they tell you that the principles characters from the first film return and show you the new elements to see in this sequel. That's probably more than good enough for anyone who liked the original and expect no less or that much more this time around. I doubt there's going to be that much more here given the poster but then there doesn't really have to be if they've done it right.

[Get The Big Picture]

It would've been better with just Stiller pointing his flashlight at the Lincoln Memorial (which is not in the Smithsonian, by the way...or course, neither is a lot of that stuff), and then showing Lincoln giving the OK sign.