St. Louis, the host city for this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, had to be central to the concept promoting the mid-season classic and the Fox Network’s broadcast of the star-studded game earlier this week.
Fox Sports Marketing, Los Angeles, came up with the perfect promo featuring the iconic St. Louis Gateway Arch. This spot opens on a large stadium during a ball game, as first baseman Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies holds New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter on base.
Suddenly, both Jeter and Howard are propelled skyward by an unseen force, which is soon revealed to be the St. Louis Arch doubling as a gargantuan magnet, resembling those magnets you used in elementary school science class.
The giant Archway magnet is being held by a giant hand, which takes it from city to city, attracting numerous fans as well as other all-star players to it. The players and everyday people are delighted to be drawn in for the ride; one fan is even taking pictures of the spectacle with his cell phone as he’s hanging in the wild blue yonder, magnetized to the giant Arch.
Finally the huge hand brings the magnet to Busch Stadium in St. Louis where Cardinals superstar Albert Pujols awaits. The fans and players are dropped off by the magnet into the stadium for the 2009 All-Star Game.
“We were really excited to have finally nailed a concept that tied St. Louis and the Arch and the All-Star Game together,” said Robert Gottlieb, Fox Sports Marketing senior VP/creative director, “But pretty immediately the excitement gave way to the realization that, great, we sold the idea, now how in the world do we actually pull this off?”
Towards that end, Fox called on Madrid-based visual effects studio La Huella to bring the spot to fruition. Fox has collaborated with La Huella in the past, a prime example being the Daytona 500 race promo (SHOOT, 2/27). Another hurdle was getting access to Major League Baseball all-stars in the throes of a busy season, but Fox took on the logistical challenge and with cooperation from the MLB Marketing team secured assorted stars, including New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera and Seattle Mariners’ outfielder Ichiro Suzuki.
Fox Sports packed up the green screens and headed to St. Louis, Philadelphia, Boston and New York to shoot the players while Mark Simmons (creative director of Fox Sports) and his plate team darted in and out of various stadiums filming all the plates needed for compositing. Fox finished up back home in Los Angeles with a location shoot day and a stage day for stunts, threw it all into a blender andSãovoila, another All-Star extravaganza.
The Fox Sports team included Simmons, Gottlieb, exec VP of marketing Eric Markgraf, VP on-air promotions Bill Battin, director of on-air promotions Jason Dodd, designer Christian DeCastro, designer/Flame/color/compositing/finishing artist Kevin Prendiville, Flame/color/compositing/finishing artist Thomas Downs, editor Kirk Smith, sound designer Mic Brooling and marketing coordinator Rita Mazmanian.
Gottlieb directed via Marsha Hunt Productions which served as live-action production company. The DP was Tom McGrath. Producers were Marsha Hunt and Lissa Weiss. Additional credits for the company included art director Paul Bickel, stunt coordinator Joe Box, second unit director Simmons, second unit producer Jason Dodd, second unit camera Bennett Cerf and “hand of god” and bonus cameraman Guillermo Lecuona.
The La Huella ensemble of talent consisted of 3D/2D supervisor and 2D/post artist Jérôme Debéve, 3D/2D supervisor and 3D artist Juan Antonio Ruiz, 3D artists Antonio Lado, David Gonzalez, Gerardo Arpide, Miguel Angel Corominas, Vanesa Iglesias and Martin Contel, and 2D/post artists Régis Barbey, Thiago Dantas, Ricardo Gomez, Daniel Bryka, and Patricia Martin.
“One of Them Days” and “Mufasa: The Lion King” In Tight Race For Top Spot In Weekend Box Office
The Keke Palmer buddy comedy "One of Them Days" opened in first place on the North American box office charts on a particularly slow Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
The R-rated Sony release earned $11.6 million from 2,675 theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday, beating Disney's "Mufasa: The Lion King" by a hair. By the end of Monday's holiday, "Mufasa" will have the edge, however.
"One of Them Days" cost only $14 million to produce, which it is expected to earn by Monday. The very well-reviewed buddy comedy stars Palmer and SZA as friends and roommates scrambling to get money for rent before their landlord evicts them. Notably it's the first Black female-led theatrical comedy since "Girls Trip" came out in 2017 and it currently carries a stellar 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
But the marketplace was also quite weak overall. The total box office for Friday, Saturday and Sunday will add up to less than $80 million, according to data from Comscore, making it one of the worst Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekends since 1997.
"For an individual film like 'One of Them Days' this was a great weekend," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. "You can still find success stories within what is overall a low grossing weekend for movie theaters."
The Walt Disney Co.'s "Mufasa" was close by in second place with $11.5 million from the weekend, its fifth playing in theaters. Globally, the Barry Jenkins-directed prequel has made $588 million. It even beat a brand-new offering, the Blumhouse horror "Wolf Man," which debuted in third place with $10.6 million from 3,354 North American theaters.
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