Special Coverage Pop Culture Classics (The EW 1000)Sound BitesSummer TVBox Office Game

Hollywood has gone square! It all started last winter, when Focus Features ran newspaper ads for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with a checkerboard of movie stills and critical praise. ''The boxes provided a system to highlight all these reviews,'' explains Focus' David Brooks. ''And we played with yellows and blues [for] sunshine and sky.'' Months later, Fox Searchlight came out with a quote-filled pastel-checkerboard ad for Garden State, followed by an I [HEART] Huckabees poster showcasing its ensemble cast. Now Miramax has squared off: Ads for J. Lo's Shall We Dance? mix hyperbolic kudos (''Utterly entertaining!'' --Wireless magazine) with shots of Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, and Mya. ''There are only so many ways to incorporate a bunch of images,'' says Miramax's Amanda Lundberg. ''You try to be original, but if it looks similar to another ad, what can I say?'' Besides, since when has Hollywood been about originality?


Posted Oct 22, 2004 | Published in issue #789 Oct 22, 2004 | Order Article Reprints