Audience and Institutions

1.                  Who do you think the primary and secondary target audience is for The Woman in Black? Why?

The primary audience for The Woman in Black would be the people who are fans of horror films. In this case the people who like ghosts and supernatural appearances in films and these people are the main focus when they advertise the film so they are the primary audience.

The secondary audience are people that are a fan of Daniel Radcliff as a character in Harry Potter as he was used a lot in marketing to appeal to a younger audience which is why the age rating of the film is a 12. He wanted to do this to show that he has broken away from the Harry Potter films and by doing that he marketed most of the film by himself.

2.                  How was The Woman in Black marketed? (Think about genre(s), subgenre(s), media platforms, target audience, promotions, size of campaign, etc.).

The marketing was done in a clever way because they made it appeal to a large amount of people. Firstly to people who like horror, then to people who like a more specific type of horror and in this case the subgenre was supernatural. Because they wanted to appeal to a younger audience a lot of marketing was done on social media.

3.                  Do you think the marketing materials for the film were appropriate? Why?

Good marketing is important for a film to be successful. The teaser trailer for The Woman in Black was very important as it gave the audience a snippet of what the film was going to be like. The teaser trailer can be seen as the just as important as the main trailer because if the teaser trailer isn’t good then people won’t bother watching the main trailer of even the film. This also goes for posters and magazine covers, as they have to look good and enticing for the audience to make them want to go and see the film. The Woman in Black had a high budget therefore needed to be successful to make a profit and that’s why the marketing was so important. Overall the marketing for The Woman in Black paid off because of how much time they put into it appealing to as many audiences as they could.

4.                  What kind of release did the film have? (Big/small? How many cinemas showed the film on its release?)

The film had a big realise and made a lot of money in the first weekend of it being shown. The film was shown in 2,855 screens in America and in its opening weekend it earned $20,874,072. In England it was shown in 412 screens which earned £3,153,020 in the opening weekend. The film was in cinemas for 13 weeks in total of $53,333,290 so a big amount of their profit was made in the first weekend of it being shown.  

5.                  How much did The Woman in Black cost to make? (Production budget) AND what was the industry impact of The Woman in Black? (Think box office and trends).

The films overall cost to make was $15,000,000. But by looking at the profits it made this back in the first weekend of it being shown.

6.                  Why do you think the film was so successful? (You must come up with at least two reasons).

I think the film was so successful because of all the marketing they put and especially because Daniel Radcliff was in most of the marketing campaigns. This then made the film appeal to a larger audience and not just to an audience who like horror films because of the actor that was in it. Another reason I think it done so well was because the age rating was so low. Not many horror films are rated a 12 and because of this it included a wider amount of people. It almost forced 12,13 and 14 year olds to go see it because they were allowed to go see a horror and at the same time reassured them because they knew the actor in the film.