New Line marketers may be relying too heavily on the built-in fan base
of Lord of the Rings to attract a big opening-week audience and
not enough on the broader public, which will decide whether the film has
“legs,” the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested today.
“The campaign hasn’t been broad enough,” an unnamed rival studio exec
told the newspaper. “They’re acting like it’s the campaign for The
Empire Strikes Back instead of the original Star Wars.
They’re assuming an awareness, interest and familiarity that I’m not
sure are there.”
The Inquirer itself commented that the movie
“could use a few appendices to explain who’s who and what’s what. The
central figures in the large cast … enter and exit without benefit of
back-story, which may throw off Tolkien novices.”
