What made 'Animal Kingdom' a marketing success?

‘Animal Kingdom’ was directed by David Michôd and produced by Liz Watts, and released in February 2010. The money was invested by a company named Madman, who’s films also include ‘The Future’ and ‘Melancholia’ ‘Animal Kingdom’s’ main marketing technique was to spread the knowledge of the film around social networking sites, such as Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. Using social networking sites didn’t only increase the audience size; it also built a platform for a much anticipated release.

The actors include, Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Jacki Weaver and many more. These actors aren’t exactly the most well-known actors, which may suggest that this is an independent film. The most well-known actor in this film, Guy Pearce, is not sold in the trailer. This could either mean that they don’t consider Guy Pearce as a well-known actor, or that they chose to do it to enhance their marketing strategy, and increase the image of the independence of the film.

The budget for ‘Animal Kingdom’ was roughly $5 million AUD, which is incredibly low (considering it’s success), compared to similar films such as ‘Road to Perdition’ which had a budget of $80 million. So far ‘Animal Kingdom’ has a gross $6.8 million AUD, within a three month period, giving it a profit of approximately $1.8 million AUD. The trailer is one of the biggest influences of a films life; it’s what gets your films views. The trailer is a teaser of different parts of the film. ‘Animal Kingdom’s’ trailer is probably one of the best trailers, I and many of my classmates have seen. Using a very popular song ‘All out of love’ by Air Supply and the iconic animalistic features, the trailer is what truly helped this film get where it is now. They use reviews in the trailer from newspapers and articles, and mention that it was the winner of the world cinema jury prize in the Sundance film festival in 2010. The combination between a well loved song and an appropriate trailer sequence meant that ‘Animal Kingdom’ was an incredible success, despite a few minor issues, such as the budget that it was produced with.