There have been plenty of rumblings lately among Edgar Rice Burroughs fans wondering when WB will begin promoting Tarzan (aka Tarzan the Untamed aka Tarzan 2016). The release, set for July 1, 2016, is still eleven months off, but folks are seeing other 2016 movies getting buzzed about (most notably Suicide Squad, another Warner Brothers movie, set for release on August 5, 2016, a month after Tarzan).
I decided a digital sleuthing was in order to try and figure out what WB is doing with ALL of its movies so that it would then be possible to view what it’s doing, or not doing, with Tarzan in context. After many hours of research, I can report that there is a definite pattern to what WB is doing, and their treatment of Tarzan is consistent with all of their pictures except two — Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman — both of which are in a category of mega high comic book driven buzz/expectation that sets them apart from all other upcoming WB releases, including Tarzan. And yes, I know Tarzan is also a comic book character, but go check out the various comic book hero ranking lists and you’ll see that as a major comic book character in 2015, Tarzan doesn’t make the cut.
So at this point, I think the message is — give Sue Kroll and the folks at Warner Brothers Worldwide Marketing a little slack and a little more time. It is evident that they are not neglecting Tarzan when you look at Tarzan in the context of all the other WB movies; their release dates; and their promotional profile to date, with each movie’s promotional status indexed against its release date.
Here is my chart. It tells the story pretty clearly.
Some explanations:
- The number under First Look Poster is the number of days ahead of release that the First Look Poster appeared.
- Ditto for First Look Trailer
- Under the social media columns, Ive listed the number of likes or followers as appropriate. “None” means there is no social media site yet.
What does the chart tell us?
- Tarzan is 330 days out from release, and for all of its movies except the two comic book mega blockbusters, the first poster and first trailer typically don’t appear until quite a bit later. Statistical average is about 120 days or four months before release.
- Tarzan is in line behind seven other movies that have earlier release dates, and which have not yet had a poster or trailer released, or started their social media marketing.
Based on the data, I think we can look forward to Tarzan promotions that will probably start with the Christmas season … so maybe a Tarzan trailer and poster timed to more or less coincide with the release of In The Heart of the Sea (a Ron Howard period piece re-telling of the true story that inspired Moby Dick) on December 11, and/or Point Break on December 25.
This is just one piece of the data I’ve been mining lately … I’m also looking at the competition in Tarzan’s timeframe and seeing what they are doing, or not doing, and looking at other aspects of the promotional rollout.
But for now — chillax. It’s not time yet – not the way WB does things.