Researching movie posters

I'm looking at a selection of movie posters for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. This poster shows how the imagery of the genre generates interest and attracts an audience to the film. The potential viewers will automatically associate the skull and crossbones and daggers with pirates and thus pirate films, to the point that they have merged the two images. The mystery surrounding this, as no information is given other than the release date and the image, creates suspense and interest in the film.

However, posters that came out later in the advertising campaign focused much more on the stars of the film. At the risk of being cynical, I point out that these posters also do not show much about the plot other than dynamic imagery, this time of the stars that will appear in the film. They rely on the fame of the lead actors to create interest in the film.

The advertisers rely on the fame of the actor, and then create an intense and dynamic background to excite the audience.

However, if the film is a sequel, part of an established series, the name of the series and an image of the star of that series are familiar enough to introduce the film, and the film merely has to be shown to be as exciting and dynamic as its predecessors.

This poster for Dracula: Prince of Darkness relys on the established fame and set pieces (e.g. Christopher Lee, beautiful women meeting nasty ends) of the series and its star to attract the audience that has seen the previous Dracula films.