Jack Reacher: Never Go Back - available now on Virgin MoviesJustice is coming Looking for trailers, features and news on the latest blockbusters? We’ve got the whole shebang – from exclusive clips and interviews to features on your favourite films. Cruise vs Cruise: Who would win? Tom's cruising for a bruising - from himself? Close, but no Oscar 14 films you didn't know were snubbed by the Academy 9 retro cartoons we demand need a live-action update We NEED a Thundercats movie, Hollywood La La Land wins...and then it doesn't The funniest Oscar memes ever And the winner is... Child actors who became celebs Top movie videos this week Alien: Covenant Clip - The Last Supper New Trailer: Cars 3 Available now to Sky Cinema customers Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows The heroes in a half-shell return for another action-packed adventure The financial crisis takes it toll when an irate investor holds a TV studio hostage
I Saw The Light Tom Hiddleston dons the white Stetson to play coutry legend Hank Williams Not a Sky Cinema customer? Find out how to add Sky Cinema to your TV package You need to see these Oscar frontrunners now The greatest movie birds The greatest movie birdsFirstly, yes, Warner Bros. has made a LEGO Movie. A big budget, Hollywood, CGI motion picture starring (the voices of) Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman. The film isn’t out until February 2014, and yet Warner Bros. began the marketing push earlier this year with a great looking trailer and various teaser posters. This shouldn’t be a surprise being as LEGO has a great online strategy and has shown previous form in building its own online customer community. Recently though, the marketing push has begun through closer engagement on social network sites, clearly having learnt lessons from LEGO's own social interaction via its CUUSOO site. Let’s take a look at how Warner Bros. and their digital agency Substance are marketing LEGO's biggest new construction yet using social media…
My attention was first drawn to The LEGO Movie’s Twitter campaign yesterday when my film journalist friend tweeted this: A film is talking to me! RT @TheLEGOMovieUK Age is but a number. Why not build your own mini-figure here? — Ali Gray@The_Shiznit (@The_Shiznit) November 5, 2013 Is there anyone out there who is super excited about The LEGO Movie and is older than 32 so I can feel slightly better about myself? The LEGO Movie has its ears to the ground, and is quick to engage. The tweet comes from The Lego Movie UK account, which surprisingly only has 76 followers, but as it's only a very nascent account this shows a soft, subtle approach to marketing, ready for the big Christmas push. The USA based LEGO Movie Twitter account has 11,025 followers, which is still relatively few, considering the comparable Thor: The Dark World account has 96,025 followers. That film has been released for a week now and has therefore reached the peak of its marketing push. The LEGO Movie still has a long way to go.
So what is LEGO offering in its tweets? The chance to build your own LEGO minifigure. Here you can make your wildest dreams come true and become a true life LEGO person. Not like this though. This is the most terrifying thing I saw all Halloween… Here’s me halfway through the build. I don’t have any trousers on. And here’s the finished product… I now have trousers. Although I have turned up to work still wearing my LARPING helmet. You can download this as a custom film poster, desktop background or social avatar, but best of all, you can unlock your specially designed character as a playable minifigure in the forthcoming LEGO Movie computer game. The LEGO Movie also shares its follower’s photographs in a ‘fan of the week’ showcase. Congrats to Kristine, the creator of these awesome lemon-flavored LEGO cake pops, and our new #LEGOFanoftheWeek! — The LEGO Movie (@TheLEGOMovie) September 6, 2013 New #LEGOFanoftheWeek Adam got his whole family to dress up as LEGO bricks for Halloween!
— The LEGO Movie (@TheLEGOMovie) August 26, 2013 There’s also a palpable sense of joy coming from the stars of the film, who often tweet links and join in conversations with the LEGO Movie account. @TheLEGOMovie @prattprattpratt Oh, also I play a pirate named METAL BEARD. He has a shark for an arm, no big deal. — Nick Offerman (@Nick_Offerman) October 30, 2013 They don’t have to do this, they’re just clearly excited to be in a LEGO Movie. As a lifelong LEGO fan, the Twitter feed is a pleasure to follow and uses the relationship built up with its fans over the decades in a responsible, entertaining and relevant way. On the LEGO Movie Facebook page, LEGO is sharing the photographs its followers have taken of themselves with the LEGO Movie stands found in cinemas around the country. The LEGO Movie Facebook also runs a ‘fan of the week’ competition. This is a specifically built interface where the user can load photos directly on to the Facebook page through an app. Followers can then vote with 'likes' to pick the winner.
You can also upload photos on to Instagram using the #LEGOfanoftheweek hashtag. For further information on social media strategy download our Social Media and Online PR Strategy Guidelines and read our post on how social media engagement is a tactic, not a strategy.Animations are no longer just the stuff of charming fairy tales. Now audiences expect - and rightly so - inventive and clever films that bring adults as much delight as they do to kids. Brilliant pop culture references and thoughtful parodies of the vagaries of modern life. And there’s perhaps nothing as funny as when animated characters take on the world of work: you know, that (non-fictional) universe where we spend most of our waking hours. Here’s our list of features that we think have got it just right. Believe it or not, the whole plot of Storks is based on a corporate ploy. It’s a clever reflection of our economy’s shift from brick-and-mortar to online retail, and along the way it teases plenty of the classic features of office life, such as silly charts, board meetings… and the joys of working in the mailroom.
Find Storks in On Demand > Movies > Virgin Movies Wreck-it-Ralph is a beautiful celebration of old-school arcade games, but it also manages to sneak in some excellent work jokes. Each of the characters fulfils their game role like any day job, and then travels to other consoles at night to socialise. The Pixar film gets us to think about how our identity can irrationally meld with that of our professions: the game bad guys confess to feeling guilty - though they’re just harmlessly doing their jobs. The plot also manages to convey that all skills are valuable, depending on the context. The amiable Fix-it-Felix hilariously can’t get himself out of a prison because he only knows how to repair things - whereas Ralph realises that his destructive powers can come in useful. The joke’s on energy companies in Monsters, Inc. Its two heroes, monsters Mike and Sully, collect the screams of children in order to power the electricity in Monstropolis. Their factory is peppered with ingenious spoofs, from the employee of the month competition, the terrifying administrative assistant, the gross locker rooms, and the weaselling Director.
There’s even a dodgy money-making conspiracy. In the end it turns out that children’s laughter produce way more energy than their fear. A subtle criticism of our often negative work culture? Monsters, Inc. is available now on Sky Cinema Disney The masterpiece that is Inside Out is all about how our emotions interact to spur us into action. Its creators however slipped in a few job jokes in as well. The emotions of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear all work together over a giant console in a control room, which constantly gets upgraded as the main character, Riley, ages. The five colleagues spend much of their time arguing over who gets to take control of the commands - until they realise that their enterprise, aka Riley, is much better off when they come together as a team. Inside Out is available now on Sky Cinema Disney In Zootropolis we follow the adventures of Judy Hopps, the first rabbit to graduate a police academy and to become a officer. In this world populated by anthropomorphic animals, predator and prey species are stereotyped into societal roles.
It’s a skilful tale which addresses discrimination in the workplace, the distractions of social media and the charms and challenges of working in a big city. And it’s got possibly the best collection of puns, ever. We’re right there with you battling that grass ceiling, Judy. Zootropolis is available now on Sky Cinema Disney The Incredibles sends up superhero films in a wonderful way, and in the same stroke manages to poke fun at how dreary office life can get. In a spot-on scene at the start of the story, Mr Incredible himself is stuck in a grey cubicle in an insurance job. He goes rogue by helping his clients fill out all the right forms, and escape the company’s punitive policies. It makes for a witty criticism of bureaucracy… The Incredibles is available now on Sky Cinema Disney This early Pixar classic (okay, we are a little obsessed with Pixar) follows an ant colony as they collect grains to prepare for the winter ahead. Their harvest necessitates a very systematised work structure, through which the film manages to satirise herd mentality and over-complicated management.