When Yahya Abdul Mateen II stepped onto the blue carpet at the premiere of The fantastic four: first steps Last July, fans were expecting the usual Marvel crossover love.
Instead, he appeared fully in character as Simon Williams, promoting the fiction. wonder man movie inside wonder man.
Yes, Marvel basically promoted a fake movie at a real premiere.
“That was a tone-setting exercise,” says Ryan Stankevich, brand marketing leader for Marvel and Disney. “It was a signal to the audience that this was something different.”
Different is to put it mildly. The Disney+ series, which released all eight episodes on Jan. 27, leans heavily toward Hollywood satire, featuring real-life milestones and actors like Josh Gad and Joe Pantoliano playing themselves.
So, marketing followed suit.
Instead of designing a generic teaser poster, the team created a fake cover of The Hollywood Reporter. “We could always do a fake industrial business, but that’s not as fun,” he said.
“If we’re really going to lean into the meta-nature of the campaign and the Hollywood nature of it all, we should have a real Hollywood Reporter.”
They didn’t expect approval. They understood it.
From there, things got wilder. A fictional director announced the film in-universe on Arguing about movies Account X. Ben Kingsley appeared in character as Trevor Slattery, and even stormed out of an interview with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.
“You need actors who are willing, who are involved and who are enthusiastic,” says Stankevich. “They loved the program and understood exactly what we were trying to do.”
There was even a text campaign: fans could text “ACT” to Trevor’s number to receive acting tips. “Ben recorded weeks of acting tips. I still get texts from Trevor Slattery explaining the ropes,” Stankevich added with a smile.
Marvel didn’t just break the fourth wall. He redecorated it.
