I GIVE IT A YEAR - How to sell a romantic comedy to foreign audiences

Did you know that studio marketing departments often have to make major cosmetic changes to a film's poster in order to promote it effectively in other countries? Take I Give It A Year, for example...

Did you know that Jason Flemyng was removed from the Australian version of the poster due to an incident at a party in Sydney where he went around making everyone tell him that he was their favourite Jason to appear in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels?

Or that Belgian audiences find an abundance of unused white space to be more entertaining than Stephen Merchant's gangly frame and have always had a dislike of Minnie Driver ever since they found out that she actually prefers to drive a Volvo?

How about the fact that audiences in Germany also carry a dislike of Jason Flemyng stemming from a different incident, but are big fans of exclamation points and anachronistic, poorly hidden sofa bombs?

Well now you know. Or maybe some international marketing departments like messing about with posters just for the sake of it.

I hope you're paying attention, Kevin Bacon. This is how pre-film announcements should be made.

Starring Before Midnight's Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, this new public service announcement for the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas sees the delightfully snooty pair (notice Hawke name-dropping Tolstoy with great ease) lambast a member of the audience for using their phone while they are talking.

It's a fun little short that serves as a nice warm up for Before Midnight, and as a reminder that The Alamo Drafthouse knows how to expertly belittle people into behaving in their screens. Seriously, imagine how peaceful it would be if a major cinema chain was brave enough to show a video like the following one before each film? The campaign starts here.

World War Zombies VS Zombies of War - What a difference a swastika makes.

Once again proving that I'm quite good at spotting these things before they happen, it appears that the distributors of the upcoming DVD re-release World War Zombies have had a change of heart and decided to revert back to the film's original, less lawsuit baiting title of Zombies of War; the one it had back in 2006 before Brad Pitt decided to make a vaguely similarly worded action film that they could try and piggy back on.

To further distance themselves from the soon-to-be-released big budget World War Z, they've also made a few subtle changes to the design of the DVD cover, swapping out the overturned van for a tank, increasing the devastation around them and replacing the modern, US flag adorned soldiers with old school World War II soldiers with swastika's on.

So wait... are we supposed to be rooting for the Nazis now?

DON JON - Trailer for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut

His star may be in rapid ascendence following his role in The Dark Knight Rises, but as we all know, JGL has been working away on his film career for quite a while now in the likes of Mysterious Skin, Brick and last year's time travel head-scratcher Looper. What most people don't know about is his career behind the camera, honing his skills as a filmmaker via his crowd/talent-sourcing website hitRECord for the past few years.

We now have the first widely released feature to spring from Gordon-Levitt's imagination and hitRECord's fertile loins in the form of the Sundance hit Don Jon (formerly titled Don Jon's Addiction for reasons that become apparent when you watch the trailer). Starring Gordon-Levitt in the title role as a Jersey boy falling in love and learning to balance his vices, whether the underlying subject matter is to your taste or not, there's no denying that this directorial debut for Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks fun.

With a supporting cast that includes Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza, from the trailer it's a hard story to peg down, in parts reminding of Fight Club, Taxi Driver and American History X whilst also seeming like none of those films.

Don Jon has a release date of October 18th on the other side of the pond, so expect to see Don Jon arrive in the UK before the end of the year.

The Good, the Bad and the Blu-rays

There's only one major release this week that won't be to everyone's taste, so why not check out one of the smaller titles or documentaries that have been released this week too?

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT - Season 4 Netflix trailer

Seven long years after its cancellation, it's now less than two short weeks before we see the return of the Bluth family, this time online via Netflix. Despite all the main players returning, there is a worry that somehow they won't be able to recreate the magic that the original series had. There's reportedly been some changes to the format of the show that might seem a bit alien at first, but this trailer shows some moments that are destined to become fan favourites. 

All  15 new episodes of Arrested Development debut on Netflix on Sunday May 26th. One more time just for fun, let's see Buster enjoying his juice.

EVIL DEAD 2 MONDO POSTER - Now that's how you pay tribute to a classic horror film.

There was never any rule written down that old films couldn't get new posters, and quite often very good new posters. Perhaps the leading example of this is the work released by Mondo, taking cult favourites and delivering a never ending gallery of related artwork, all by different designers. One new poster has surfaced this week for Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2, showing Bruce Campbell's Ash within the woods and in the grip of a demonic possession. An undeniably beautifully composed image, this is how you pay tribute to a classic horror film.

Designed by Jason Edmiston, a limited number of prints were made available today and have since sold out, so expect this to become a hard to find collectors item immediately. If there's any mysterious benefactors out there looking to make me happy... this.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa - First teaser poster

The first teaser poster for Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa has hit the net and rather than showing off Steve Coogan's mug, it shows one of North Norfolk Digital's as a bullet passes through it, reaching colossal velocity.

Although the freeze-frame bullet is an oft used gag, it works for this teaser poster and references the siege aspect of the film's story; but unless this is just the first in a series of bullet related posters showing the tranquility of Alan's way of life disturbed, they need to get Coogan's grimace on to make a long lasting impact and a poster that students might want to put on their walls as they wear t-shirts that say Crowded House, spending their Saturday afternoon in bed with a girl, wasting their life. It's a beautiful day. They should take her out to a local fort or Victorian folly.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is released in cinemas on August 7th.

THE WORLD'S END - Poster and first trailer for the final chapter in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy

After Edgar Wright revealed the first UK quad poster for The World's End via his Twitter account a couple of days ago, today sees the release of the first trailer for the final part of what has become known as the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (or the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy).

Following 2004's Shaun of the Dead and 2007's Hot Fuzz, it has been a while since all three  worked on a project together, what with Hollywood calling and pulling Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in different directions. But they are now reunited for what may be their grand finale, as a nostalgic pub crawl turns into a race to save the world.

Although some things change, others stay the same, with the brand of comedy the threesome established in Spaced clear to see in this trailer. There's the familiar themes of friendship and male bonding mixed with Wright's kinetic direction; a big reveal that society is not what it first appears (the faces of the the possessed townsfolk look great) and a man failing miserably at jumping over a fence.

The World's End is released in the UK on July 19th followed by the US on August 23rd. It seems like an age away, but luckily the sight of Nick Frost using bar stools as boxing gloves will keep me going until then.

WORLD WAR Z - It's not just the zombies that are rising from the grave

I would never claim to be a fan of Mockbusters, the often shoddily made knock offs of Hollywood blockbusters that get released on DVD to coincide with the main theatrical release in order to confuse idiots and grandma's out doing their shopping in Tesco. I've never understood how people could get them confused with the genuine article, but as past experience has shown, they are a cottage industry now.

Still, at least the producers of such tat (usually The Asylum) have gone to some effort to actually go out and film something, rather than just change the name of an existing film to make it sound like a bigger, better and much more potentially profitable film. The latest film to suffer this treatment is Brad Pitt's World War Z, based on the book by Max Brooks, with 2006's Zombies of War becoming World War Zombies and 2013's Infected becoming Infection Z.

I just hope the irony of these films unwillingly rising from the grave and shuffling back to life isn't lost on the producers.

World War Z is released in cinemas in June. Expect to see Infection Z and World War Zombies gracing the shelves of your local supermarket's DVD aisle around the same time.