Life Size Character Replicas Market Movies Posted: Sep 15, 2007

To help build buzz and interest in two summer blockbusters, the marketers for The Simpsons Movie and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer turned to life-size replicas of movie characters. The replicas were used in theaters across the nation and created by Idea Planet, a marketing innovations company.

Particularly effective was The Simpsons Movie display, which featured a cartoon couch, with the Simpsons character sitting on it. There was room on the couch for one more person, allowing people to have their picture taken on the couch with the Simpsons.

“Studios are competing with each other for share of mind among the movie-going public 4 to 6 weeks before a movie comes out – when decisions about what movies to see are being formed -- and the best place to capture a movie-lover’s imagination is in the theatre lobby where they are anticipating what is next”, says Mike Flecker, founder of Idea Planet.

In order to accurately reproduce the unique “liquid” aspect of the Silver Surfer character, Idea Planet designers used a solution comprised of a metalizing process to create a nice liquid chrome finish.

For the Simpsons display, Idea Planet literally re-created the living room set from the animated series, leaving a space on the Simpson’s couch for people to sit down and have their picture taken. The end result was one of the biggest theatre displays ever built, measuring 12 feet long and weighing in at over 400 pounds.

“Many of these characters have only been imagined in two-dimensions or in a computer program,” says Flecker. “Our goal is to interpret someone else’s original vision and bring it to life a new way that fans can interact with on a much more personal level.”