The Odyssey: No Influencer Screenings! Why This Is a Good Idea!

The Odyssey: No Influencer Screenings! Why This Is a Good Idea!

The Odyssey is most people’s most anticipated movie of the summer and the year, and it is only three weeks away from release. Yesterday, we got some interesting news about the premiere schedule and strategy for the film. Let us talk about it!

The News: If you don’t know what I mean by “influencer screenings,” we’ve reached a point in time where social media influencers are being invited to red carpets and premieres in order to help promote the film and generate buzz on the internet about it. If you are active on social media or see the tv spots for films, you might see words like “fill in the blank is the best movie of the year” or “fill in the blank deserves an Oscar.” Overly praising certain movies, most of those come from influencers who are excited that they are at a premiere or a big event for a film so they exaggerate it up in hopes the studio will invite them back. We will talk about this later, but it is becoming a major problem in film discourse. So, Universal said that for The Odyssey, they will not be holding “word-of-mouth screenings” for influencers prior to the film’s release. They will still hold critics screenings, but not influencer screenings for The Odyssey. 

Why It’s Good for Film Journalism

       I have said this for a long time as well as thought this, but influencers merging into the realm of film critics is dangerous and bad for film discourse. Influencers are getting all these cool opportunities to go to red carpet events for these big IP blockbusters, where they get flown out with a free hotel and get to meet the cast and crew of the film. This then precedes the influencers (most of which are not even film fans), see the movie early and post their review which is glowing. They do this, because they want to be invited back and if they post a negative review for a movie, they know the studio will not invite them back. Because the quotes used in the trailers are mostly from influencers, average joes do not know the difference between film critics and influencers because they just read the quote not who said it. 

  Because of that, there has been this discourse for several years now of “critics are paid to give a movie a positive review.” First, that is stupid and untrue. Second, the reason why so much of the early buzz for movies is great these days is because the influencers hyping everything up is what gets out first, people don’t know the difference or don’t even know that influencers are the ones saying those things, not film critics. Granted, there are several hundred film critics that see the film the same as influencers and post their thoughts. But you look at these influences, especially Supes and publicly he has never been negative on a film. He was glowing about the Ballerina last year, the John Wick spinoff. Granted, the film got positive reviews, and I really dug the film. But you look at the language he was using to describe the film, and it is highly praising the film, and you look at his Instagram and there is a picture of him with Ana de Armas at the premiere of the movie. Everybody with a brain and common sense can connect the dots and see what is going on.

 

Over the last several weeks, there have been several obvious examples of a studio trying to invite influencers to an event to help promote the film. You look at Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu. There were several influencers who flew out to Disneyland and rode the Star Wars ride and met Pedro Pascal. That was an example that several people called Disney and Lucasfilm out on, as its very obvious ways for them to try and promote and get this movie talked about, so that way they can spread the positive word of mouth for this film. There have been other examples of movies that are heavily praised, and then the Rotten Tomatoes score comes out, and it is not that. The most recent example of this is with Supergirl, a movie where in one of the tv spots they used the quote “best blockbuster of the year,” the Rotten Tomatoes score comes out, and it is a 59%. Even Disclosure Day earlier this month had influencers hyping it up as “Spielberg’s masterpiece” and the film comes out, and it is very polarizing. Granted, there are people that are liking those films and that’s fine, but you can tell when it’s very obviously the studio trying to get a positive word of mouth out there without actually showing the film to people with journalistic integrity or any sense of film discussion. 

The fact that Universal and Christopher Nolan are making this decision to not have influencer screenings about the film, I think is smart. I think if this gets enough attention, I hope more studios will start to continue this. Because film journalism and influencers are two different things and the fact that they are starting to merge into one is dangerous. Film critics and film journalists should be given top priority to attend these big fancy film events, not influencers most of which are not even proper movie fans who do not have a great vocabulary for discussing movies. 

What Does It Mean for The Odyssey?

         This is something else that I wanted to touch on, which is, what does this mean for The Odyssey? Honestly, it is not making me more concerned and more excited for the film. I have seen some people say that this is a bad sign for The Odyssey and Universal is trying to hide the early buzz as much as possible. I can see where they are coming from with that thought. For me, I do not think it means anything in terms of the film’s quality. Christopher Nolan is very much set in his ways, and I can see him being a man that does not like the influencer mumbo jumbo. I do not have any reason to doubt that this is a bad sign for The Odyssey’s quality. It could just be the fact that Universal wants to experiment with this approach, so they picked The Odyssey, the film that is highly likely to be Universal’s biggest movie of the year. If this strategy and idea is successful, then maybe more studios will try to incorporate it in the future.

 

         But what this is going to do for The Odyssey, is that it is going to give audiences a more truthful and honest look at how good The Odyssey is. The premiere of the film is July 6th, and press screenings (for the critics) start July 7th. Which means either July 8th or 9th, we will get the first reviews for The Odyssey, that will not include the influencer crap. Either one of those days or maybe later, we’ll get a great look and understanding for how good or how bad The Odyssey is because its film critics sharing their opinions, and I trust film critics a whole lot more than I trust influencers regarding their thoughts on a specific film.