Digital Joe #16

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It´s incredibly easy for me to get my hopes up over something movie related and then, mercilessly, they get torn down like a sports arena that´s outlived its usefulness.

In other words, they come crashing down in a magnificent plume of dust and smoke, leaving a wounded shell of a man in the wake.

Well, it might not be that melodramatic; I have been told I have a tendency toward the theatrical more often than not. But I don´t think I´m making a mountain out of a molehill when I say the Super Tuesday we were all treated to this week left me a bit perturbed.

Okay, a lot perturbed.

Now, we were all promised in an assortment of ways that June 20 would unleash a marketing blitz like none other in conjunction with the release of "Superman Returns" next week. Half a dozen different "Superman"-releated DVD releases from a documentary to live action television programs and animated fare…and a brand new direct-to-DVD feature were all on the docket.

All of which, from all the information I was led to believe, were to include movie cash for the movie. Considering my usual movie group added one person to the roster, I was very happy to know that releases I was planning on buying anyway were going to help me out in getting tickets.

Believe me, I had it all planned. I knew which of the two big retailers in my area I was going to shop at for what releases. I had it all planned out so I could get, presumably, all the extra bonus material exclusive to those two stores. Then news started to surface all day Tuesday that the ads were misleading in one way or another. Not all the releases contained movie cash. There were four different lithographs to collect and there was one per release. There´s actually eight separate comic book covers.

To say I was apprehensive about my trip to the stores on Tuesday night after work. I hit the first one which happened to be the first only because I came upon it…well, first. I walked in, waiting to see a display of epic proportions greeting me. After all, this was "Superman", one of the biggest-if not the biggest-movie release this year. Surely all the retailers and Warner would be pushing these sets unlike anything we´ve ever seen before.

After all, television ads had been running promoting the movie for the last month nearly non-stop.

Low and behold, you never would have known there was anything special about this particular release day. There were no new "Superman" sets on the regular shelves (two laser jet printed signs did let customers know, though, about the extra material attached to them). There was no display triumphantly touting anything related to the Man of Steel.

There was, however, one teeny tiny cardboard display near the front of the store (four levels by three across) with the new releases. It had a generic WB logo on it and nothing to really signify this was an important date.

To make matters worse, every single copy of the discs that had the movie cash were gone. No "Lois and Clark", no "Justice League", no "Brainiac Attacks"…you get the idea. Firmly disgruntled, I muttered some four-letter words to myself and headed to the other store, less than a mile down the road.

Now, this store, I KNEW had a big "Superman" display. It had been up for at least a month prior to Tuesday. During that time, it had been stocked with various sets that were already released related to the Last Son of Krypton. So, I expected, that those would have all been taken down and replaced with at least some of the new sets.

What a complete dope I felt like.

The same sets that were displayed two weeks ago were still up there. I couldn´t believe it. Working my way to the back of the store, I expected some kind of display trumpeting the new stuff.

Guess what I found?

A few of the sets on the New Release rack. A few of the sets sitting on the regular shelves like old stock. And that´s it. I walked around in total and utter disbelief. This was the big marketing blitz that was going to accompany "Superman Returns"? Hell, I thought to myself, I certainly hope the marketing isn´t symbolic of the quality of this movie.

The other thing that shocked me was that, by 5:30 pm, precious few of the sets I did find on the shelf had stickers to denote their movie cash inside. It´s pretty hard for me to believe that in the 7 ½ hours these stores were open, those sets sold nearly completely out while, about a month later, the movies that had "The DaVinci Code" tickets attached to them are still sitting on the shelf.

So I got to thinking: what does this mean for future promotions? Does it mean we´ll all have to be a little late to work in the fall when the Ultimate Superman Collection streets just to make sure we get one? It´s the same thing that has been happening with the recent slate of 2 Disc Special Edition´s that seem to go out of print the day before the release hits stores ("Jarhead" and "Munich" to name two). I´d like to pin the problem on one studio, but Universal released the movies I just mentioned; WB had the "Superman" catalog.

I´m not exactly sure what happened here: if there were all sold out or if WB didn´t pack enough. Maybe a combination of the two conspired against me on Tuesday. I´ve never had a problem finding the special offers on whatever discs I wanted when I got out of work on release day. But it´s getting harder and harder to do so.

It´s almost enough to get me to give up on these kinds of things. After all, none of us have enough time to run from store to store to find a comic book, dog tags or whatever the offer might be.

At least I´ll on a buying hiatus until the middle of July.

I know…we´ll see how long that lasts, right?

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