2019 in review... with Tom Linay

What piece or pieces of cinema advertising have impressed you most over the last year?

KFC made me laugh earlier this year – which is always a good sign. KFC’s campaign was based on the idea that it has a number of imitators around the country – my local is PFC. They followed their brilliant Chicken Town ad, created by Mother, with bespoke for cinema idents, created by DCM Studios, that looked like the film you were about to watch was starting, but it was actually a cheap knock-off. 

Joker, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Godzilla: King Of The Monsters and Last Christmas were the films in question but I think their ad pre Spider-Man: Far From Home was the best. German Doner Kebab was also a big fan of cinema this year, which was a surprise. It’s just a shame I’m vegetarian.

Are clients/agencies using cinema to create commercial messages bespoke to cinema audiences?

The aforementioned KFC ads are a great example of this, but Lidl also produced some fun bespoke creative to go with their Lidl Movie Moments offer.

 Disney+ is clearly going to shake up the SVOD landscape but there’s going to be a very clear relationship between Disney+ and cinema.

Recent analysis suggests that cinema is extremely popular with 16-to-34-year-olds, but with the ever-increasing market share of streaming platforms, do you think this will continue to be the case?

I think there’s every reason to be confident that cinema will remain popular with 16-34-year-olds. Amazon Prime and Netflix have been around for a while now, I don’t think we can call them new platforms any more, and we haven’t seen cinema audiences affected negatively, if anything they’ve increased people’s thirst for film and longer-form content. 

I think the big question now should be, how will Netflix perform with competition from Disney+? 

Disney+ is clearly going to shake up the SVOD landscape but there’s going to be a very clear relationship between Disney+ and cinema, and Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer, Kevin Feige, has already said that Marvel’s films for cinema and television shows for the platform will feed into each other. Marvel have just announced that they’ll be releasing four films a year from 2021 and they’ve been incredibly savvy in bringing in new audiences to their films, while keeping existing fans happy. Who’s to say they won’t still be doing that in two years time? I think the big question now should be, how will Netflix perform with competition from Disney+? 

Does the fact that those streaming platforms actively don’t carry advertising help other media, such as cinema?

Of course. 16-34 audiences on linear television are declining, so where else can you reach them with AV messaging? Cinema! I think more and more brands are coming round to this, and I think brands are also becoming more savvy about the kind of films 16-34s watch. For example, horror films have been less attractive to brands over the last decade, but 16-34s flock to them. 

It’s no surprise that actors of the calibre of Emily Blunt, Elisabeth Moss and Samuel L. Jackson are lining up to be in [horror films] too.

The audience for A Quiet Place was 74% 16-34 and they’re going to turn out for the sequel in March too. You’re going to see similar numbers for The Invisible Man, Candyman, Antlers, Halloween Kills and the new Saw films. It’s no surprise that actors of the calibre of Emily Blunt, Elisabeth Moss and Samuel L. Jackson are lining up to be in them too. I just wish they weren’t so scary. I bought a new nightlight a few weeks ago, so maybe that will help?

How about the films themselves; which releases have been your favourites over 2019?

It’s been another great year and here’s a list of some of the films I’ve loved: Eighth Grade, Thunder Road, Booksmart, Long Shot, If Beale Street Could Talk, Vox Lux, Ad Astra, Apollo 11, One Cut Of The Dead, Knives Out, Midsommar and Pain & Glory. I would say though, that three of the very best films I’ve seen this year are out in Q1 next year – whatever you do in Q1, don’t miss Parasite.

Where do you stand on the recent Martin Scorsese assessment of Marvel movies not being cinema?

Martin Scorsese is in his late-70s and has made some of the greatest American films of all-time and continues to make great films - he can say whatever he likes about cinema! All I’ll say is that at age 11, I loved Batman, and by 18 I loved Goodfellas. Now, at 40, I still love both. The current MCU fans will hopefully be watching Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson (all filmmakers Martin Scorsese mentioned in his NYT op-ed) in the not-too-distant future.

What do you think the biggest films of 2020 will be?

No Time To Die is almost certain to be the biggest film of the year, but below that it’s a much more unpredictable year than 2019 and, for me, that makes it exciting. Minions 2 looks likely to be the biggest family film, but Pixar’s Soul looks like it has more than a touch of genius, so could challenge it. 

Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, while still shrouded in secrecy, is going to demand to be seen on the big screen, but don’t underestimate the fondness people hold for Top Gun when Top Gun: Maverick comes out (currently the same day as Tenet). Marvel and DC will definitely trouble the top 10, as usual, and I can’t pick the biggest from Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984 and The Eternals.

Terminator; should it be back, or terminated?

Good question. I actually enjoyed Terminator: Dark Fate, and it was probably the best of the sequels since T2: Judgement Day, but the next Terminator film, whenever that may be, needs to do something different. Dark Fate nailed the action scenes but the rest was just a bit too familiar. Maybe they need a Joker-style reset that focusses more on smaller, individual stories, rather than continually tackling end-of-the-world threats. If they need me to chat about it with James Cameron, I’m up for it. I think.