Black Swan movie posters

The movie posters for Darren Aronofsky’s new film Black Swan have been a pretty impressive run. I came across the topmost posters a few months ago, struck by the classic sensibility of the colors and illustration. These posters emerged online when I hadn’t a clue about the movie or what it was about, but it instantly had my attention. Even the new posters sporting Natalie Portman’s face are done well, creating a sense of unease which I hear is a main theme of the film.

But let’s talk about teaser posters for a moment. I’ve done some riffing on Hollywood for consistently messing up modern movie posters and I’d like to use Black Swan to support my argument. Marketing of films are angled toward whoever has the starring role, this is painfully obvious. But teaser posters are a different breed of marketing. As I said earlier, I was instantly intrigued by Black Swan upon seeing those teasers above, so much so that I kept it on my radar as the trailer was released and everything ramped up. That is exactly what a teaser poster should do, create interest. Those posters are beautiful, mysterious, atmospheric and above all, different!

I’m confident in saying that if those posters weren’t released I probably wouldn’t have cared enough to watch for this movie. And I certainly wouldn’t be writing this right now.

So Hollywood, please take a few notes from Aronofsky on this one. If you claim the official poster of whatever movie should have a big picture of Tom Cruise’s face, then fine. But why not explore alternative styles, designs and creative for the teasers in order to garner the interest of folks outside of the lead actor’s fanbase? It worked in my case.


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4 responses to “Black Swan movie posters”

  1. Martin Avatar

    Awesome posters!

  2. GeeHarrison Avatar
    GeeHarrison

    Shocking posters.

  3. Tom Miatke Avatar

    Yeh I agree with you James on the Hollywood concept.. Studio’s and producers think that a Teaser poster with a Giant head of the star will be enough, one day it was enough but now that we are bombarded by advertising and posters that have seen and done this concept hundreds of times, it becomes old and quickly forgettable. The way to ‘tease’ someone now is to create something completely different and unique.. especially for a film, for it to stand out in its marketing stratagem, it needs to be bold and take risks, unfortunately not many executives and producers are willing to take a chance and will stick with whats old and done.
    Anyway! Awesome posters :) Love them haha.. Maybe you should do your own rendering of them after you see the movie?? That could be cool and something a bit different :)

  4. Ron Avatar

    I assume you’ve seen the BBC series “The Genius of Design”… if not, check it out, it’s phenomenal.

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