A Letter to the Creators of Piranha 3D
Dear creators of Piranha 3D,
What the heck are you doing?
Seriously, I’d seen the trailer before in a movie theater somewhere and was sort of “ha, whatever, looks like schlock shock intentionally-unintentional comedy.” No prob.
But now I’ve been hit by this massive Piranha blitz on television– as if I don’t get sick enough of all the OTHER overly repetitive ads I see during my beloved Law & Order/House/NCIS marathons –and I find myself perplexed. It’s starting to look like you spent more of your budget on the marketing plan than on the CG. And while I understand the whole slight tongue-in-cheek horror thing (speaking as one of approximately eighteen people who enjoyed Snakes on a Plane), their marketing was seemingly done on a shoestring budget. If they’d had the cash, I feel like they would have spent it on, you know, the product. Namely, more screen time for Samuel L. Jackson to cuss in.
I’m probably not going to wind up seeing Piranha 3D; horror isn’t my genre, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise (Snakes on a Plane I saw, in all reality, because I wanted to support the flick’s unusual marketing campaign, not that it helped them any). And I admit: I know very little about the franchise except that it’s older than me. So maybe P3D really IS a better flick than it looks like, and perhaps your marketing budget will actually turn it into a box office hit instead of what I would have expected to be a cult genre thing.
…But I kind of doubt it.
Gia Manry is a professional writer specializing in geek culture. She currently writes primarily for Anime News Network, but also likes being followed on Twitter. She can be contacted via her website.