Harvey Weinstein Slightly Justifies A Single Man Marketing

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Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Weinstein Company, Adaptation, Drama, Period, Romance, Celeb News, Celebrity Gossip, Celebrity Controversy, Distribution, Rumors, Upcoming Releases

When the original movie poster (above) for Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man, appeared online, fans questioned whether or not distributors The Weinstein Company was downplaying the major gay theme of the film.

In the film, Colin Firth plays a closeted professor who mourns over his lover’s (Matthew Goode) death. Judging by the poster of Firth in bed with Julianne Moore (whose screen time is rumored to be fairly short), I think it’s safe to say that there was little intention to illustrate said storyline.

Upon the recent release of the film’s second poster (seen after the jump), Harvey Weinstein was questioned about the marketing that seems to say something other than the real message at hand.

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When asked about whether or not it was difficult to market a gay romance film, Weinstein said, “No, Brokeback Mountain did pretty well. Midnight Cowboy did pretty well. If you know how to market, you can market. There’s an audience for it.”

Interesting, because those two films featured both men in the relationships on the posters… According his words, he’s setting up the movie to fail!

As soon as he was directly grilled about downplaying the gay theme, Weinstein had little to say, “I’m good. You got enough. Thank you.”

While Julianne Moore is, in fact, a bigger star than Matthew Goode, the way that she is placed on the posters with Colin Firth makes their relationship seem more than platonic. She lies in bed with him in the first and looks longingly at him in the second—there’s no getting around the fact that (aside from the amazing styling) the posters evade the same-sex relationship focus.

With a control freak like Tom Ford, one has got to wonder whether it is really the Weinsteins who have real control over the marketing. With the release of the two posters, some online writers have gone so far as to thinking Ford is trying to “trick” straight people into watching a gay film.

I can’t necessarily bring myself to agree with this, considering Ford’s name (here’s to hoping you already know that he’s gay) is blatantly strewn across the posters, despite him being a first-time director.