Gerry looks like a tremendously hard film to market into the mainstream society, but there is also a concept called the art-house world. And if promoted correctly, you can, via such, nail a solid opening weekend per-screen average. The Coen Brothers exclusively pulled an ad-spot newspaper campaign in the top film markets prior to its limited release bow with simply the actors involved and the tagline, "A Coen Brothers Film" on the poster, getting off to a strong opening weekend tally in its exclusive platforms. All people needed to know was that the Coen’s had a new picture out and it meant spending $9 or so dollars to give it a shot, being the Coen’s continuous non-sucking career. That can be a heavy backlash for me, as I haven’t been to very many art-houses in the past couple months outside of The Quiet American and Far from Heaven. And neither occasion involved a trailer to this picture. But regardless, I haven’t heard of any real trailer spots for this film and haven’t heard anyone talking about it either.

For Gerry, I noticed the film had a small little ad-spot in the LA Times Calendar section on Sunday (February 9) far from the front page with the mention of one theater in town that it is going to on the 14^th. It lists the rave reviews the film is getting from critics, including an especially positive reaction from Roger Ebert. Does it include that Damon and Affleck co-wrote it with Van Sant? No, but it does mention the director; we have to look into the credits below to acquire that information. From this mini-little poster, we don’t know the story, but can guess that it has something to do with a guy named Gerry (both characters are actually named Gerry) and a desert is involved with the premise. We also have a snapshot of Damon and Affleck staring out into the nothingness perimeters with the sunlight affecting their view. I don’t know if ThinkFilm’s ad-approach is going to work for this production, but I’m actually quite worried for the box office turnout of this adventure.

Call it bad coincidences adding up to a terrifying degree, but Gerry is almost sounding like a Swept Away bomb. Let’s go into details: the trailer has not been showing up anywhere in theaters to my awareness (meets the status of Swept Away already), and the preview itself is very likely not going to be eye-catching to anybody who doesn’t appreciate artsy productions. Swept Away’s trailer highlighted Guy Ritchie as a director with an actual snazzy style that had me to an extent, as I wanted to see the flick due to Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock…, and Snatch). Gerry’s preview highlights Gus Van Sant as the director, with taglines comparing the picture to Andy Warhol meets Ansel Adams meets Blair Witch. What’s even scarier is that the trailer music for Gerry is one of the songs featured in Swept Away; I’d know because I actually saw that movie second day out at a deserted good-sized theater.

After watching Gerry’s preview for the first time online, I had this weird feeling that as different and weird and anti-Hollywood as the movie appeared, if it was given the proper ad-campaign targeting real filmgoers (and fans) who aren’t looking for pure entertainment, Gerry could possibly be an indie hit. Coming from the people who constructed Good Will Hunting, you can fill plenty of seats even if not all of them would be in the mood for what this production actually looks to hand over in viewer digestion. This film looks like an extremely slow flick with not a whole lot going on (in terms of excitement) at any point of its trip, but to me there’s still something sensational about the entire idea. I just have this view that when I very likely go see it in its first weekend, there may not be anyone else present.