The headline seemed like a breath of fresh air. The dawn of a new era. A victory for the good guys. “Christopher Nolan The odyssey skip social media influencer screenings,” said an article in the hollywood reporter Last week, and everywhere, people rejoiced. Goodbye to the first reviews bought and paid for. Comments that, most of the timeThey are much more positive than those of the professional and critical journalists who come later.
Only there was more than one hole in this statement. Not all of the people quoted in the article were influencers. Some were critics and professionals who had been working in this business for decades. And I know because it was me. I was among those cited.
Then on Monday night, influential peoplecreators, criticsand journalists both began posting images of a 70mm IMAX projection of The odyssey in New York City, leaving many confused. What happened to the idea of not holding influencer screenings on social media? Wasn’t Christopher Nolan going to single-handedly reshape the state of entertainment journalism?
Well, the truth is that social media influencers were always going to receive projections of The odyssey. In recent years, influencers have overtaken more traditional journalists and get most, if not all, of the talent time when a movie is released, which makes sense. Many more people (especially young people) watch videos on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok than read websites like this. A studio’s job is to publicize a movie and those influencers do it better than most.
In fact, some do it so well that they can make a lot of money doing it. That’s where a lot of the confusion arises. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, influencers’ content or interviews can be paid advertising for the film disguised as journalism. It seems like a normal interview, but it was paid for and controlled by the studio. And why not? Why not pay someone to say your movie is good instead of rolling the dice with a person who would be honest? Plus, if the studio writes the questions themselves, they can prepare the talent and not worry about an interviewer asking something they don’t want to be asked.
This is where I return to the story. What people think of as “social media influencer screenings” are often actually junket screenings: screenings that take place well before more traditional press screenings so that people doing interviews or doing longer or long-form editorial content can see the film. It is in this context where I, someone who is not paid by studios to cover movies, can often catch a movie early. And people who watch movies before there is a general consensus about them will regularly offer opinions that not everyone agrees with. Like my quote from the THR article about Disclosure Day. I still think it’s Steven Spielberg’s best movie in the last 20 years, and if most people disagree with me, that’s fine. But they didn’t pay me to say that. Universal also didn’t pay me to use the quote. I was lucky enough to see the film early and have a strong, positive and certainly hyperbolic opinion of it.
Now, watching a movie early and posting about it are two different things, which is another important issue. Wearing Disclosure Day For example, the studio (Universal, which also releases The odyssey) that I was able to publish my reaction on May 27. Screenings for all media did not take place until June 8, which is when many other opinions came in. The film was then released on June 12. So yes, having that early opinion on social media before everyone else can be influential. And mine was. He headlined articles in seemingly every trade publication.
This is where something called a social media embargo comes into play. That’s the date set by a studio when people who have seen the movie (influencers, critics, whatever) can informally post about it. is when you get articles like thiswhere the media collects a lot of reactions to a movie. Only those reactions rarely come solely from influencers. They come from critics, influencers, journalists, anyone who has seen the film and wanted to post about it.
Are those posts “influential” and are they on “social media”? Yes. But those first reactions rarely come from screenings held solely for influencers. They are screenings for people who the studios think will benefit from seeing the movie first. Maybe they are people with a tendency to be positive. Maybe they are people doing interviews. It could be any number of people. You could also be a hypothetical influencer who can get paid to say something good. However, if they’re going to say it’s good anyway, why hold a screening? Just tell them what to say and move on.
Returning things to The odysseyA more accurate headline for the THR article probably should have been something like “The odyssey The social media embargo won’t be lifted early.” Because clearly the influencers were going to see the movie early, and now they have seen it. They’ve even posted about watching it. But they haven’t posted their thoughts on it and most likely won’t until another week, when others have seen the movie. (Universal has yet to reveal the official social media embargo to The Odyssey.)
So yes, of course the influencers were going to receive advance screenings of The odyssey. And of course, journalists and critics will be able to see it soon too. But the distinction between influencers, critics, reactions, reviews, and more is not something that can be easily communicated in a headline. Christopher Nolan is powerful, but not even he can change the media machine.
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