· The poster was awful
According to Sella, the bizarre poster was meant as an homage to Saul Bass -- an homage that would excite perhaps 3 percent of the movie-going audience.
"It was a way for us to signal that this was a different, adult kind of movie. The whole campaign was designed to evoke a film like North by Northwest. It wasn't in any way us trying to hide anyone, simply to make the film look unique, so you didn't just look at the billboards as if they were designed to say, 'The Two Stars Go Here.'"
OK, that's fair -- but a quick Google image search reveals that many of the North by Northwest posters featured either Cary Grant's face, a scene from the movie, or both. Not just some random and indistinguishable silhouettes. So maybe they were trying to hide Tom Cruise's face? Otherwise: Right on, Tony!
Blame factor: 6 (out of 10)
· The trailer was awful
After the initial trailers that ran in front of Avatar got Fox nowhere fast with audiences who still weren't clear on what the film was selling, Sella says they adjusted the marketing campaign accordingly:
"Once we decided to change the message to be as literal as we could be -- to help moviegoers understand the film -- then people started to say, 'Oh, I've seen that movie before. It's 'Mr and Mrs Smith' or it's 'True Lies.' And that was exactly what we'd tried not to do, to make the movie feel like something you'd seen before."
The problem with this argument: People liked -- and saw -- those two movies. So if the trailer for Knight and Day made audiences think of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, that's probably a good thing. In reality, the trailers probably brought to mind Killers, which wasn't a good thing.
Blame factor: 7
· The title was awful
Reportedly picked by Tom Rothman, Knight and Day's inexplicable title didn't do much for its box office either. Though Sella would disagree:
"If there are three words that you should never put in any title, its Dead Poet's Society, and yet that film was a huge success. Titles really don't hurt movies, and for that matter, I don't know what else we could have called it. What we were up against was bigger than that."
To answer Sella's rhetorical question: Anything else. Cross Country, Spy Lovers, The Agent -- all would have been more appropriate. That Sella doesn't seem to accept that a better title was needed is pretty damning proof that he had no clue how to market this movie -- if the poster and trailer didn't already prove that.
Blame factor: 7
· Tom Cruise is awful
This is where things get dicey. Tom Cruise has to take some major heat for this opening -- he's the star and audiences rejected him. But based on all the marketing, even if you loved Cruise, would you want to see Knight and Day? Or for that matter, his previous leading-man release, Valkryie? Probably not. Which is why -- despite dismissing most of the problems with the Knight and Day marketing campaign that he created -- Sella is right: It was his fault. And in that way, Tom will live to fight another day -- or at least until Mission: Impossible 4 gets shut down.
Blame factor: 5.
· Fox's Tony Sella on 'Knight and Day': 'Blame me, not Tom Cruise' [LAT/The Big Picture]