“It’s So Fuzzy!”
Tracy took me to see Despicable Me on Friday night. A few months ago, I didn’t think there would be a chance in the world that not only would I willingly go to see the movie, but that I would be there opening night and pay extra to see it in 3-D.
Blame the marketing.
When the first teaser trailers for the movie came out, it was the scene where the loud, fat American tourists visit the Great Pyramids and the bratty little kid runs through the barricades and up the ramp, until—whoops!—he falls off the edge and the entire pyramid deflates. Oh, no! An evil villain has stolen the pyramid. Then there was a list of all the famous people who were going to be voices in the movie.
Not interested.
I hated the stereotypical “ugly American” tourists. I still didn’t feel like I really knew what the movie was about. And I hate it when an animated movie touts their voice power instead of their story power.
Then another batch of trailers came out. But this time it was all about Gru trying to break into Vector’s stronghold. Though the idea of battling super-villains was better . . .
Still not interested.
And then a new batch of commercials started running that showed Gru with three adorable little girls. There was also a new tag line: “Most people call him the world’s greatest super-villain. They call him Dad.”
And just like that, I was interested.
The commercials showed what felt to me like a completely different movie. One with a story about a character who is trying to be the world’s best villain but doesn’t always succeed and the three little girls who complicate his life. (Of course, it didn’t hurt that most of the commercials showed the little girl begging for the stuffed unicorn at the fair with this line: “It’s so fuzzy I think I’m gonna die!” It might not be too far of a stretch to say that that single line was what made me see the movie on opening night.)
So what made the difference? What changed my mind?
Easy: A really good hook.
The lesson I learned once again is how important it is to have a great hook for your story and to be able to deliver that hook in a “movie poster tag line” format. I tried a lot of different tag lines for Hourglass Door before I settled on this one: It’s a love story with a mystery that dates back to Leonardo da Vinci. I use it all the time at my book signings when I want to introduce people to my book. It’s quick enough to say while handing out a bookmark, but seems to be intriguing enough that people will stop and want to know more.
The best part of seeing Despicable Me was that the movie delivered on the promise offered up in the tag line. And while the opening sequence was still the bit at the pyramids (a bit I still didn’t like), the rest of the movie was a delightful story of a character trying to juggle being a villain and being a Dad. The movie had heart and soul (not to mention some awesome minions). It made me root for Gru to best Vector. It made me laugh. I’d give it five fuzzy unicorns out of five.