Hollywood studios have fallen under the influence of influencers. And why wouldn’t they? Increasingly, major studios are cutting peskily unpredictable journalists and critics out of their pre-release strategies in a world where a movie-loving TikToker named Straw Hat Goofy might be the industry’s new Pauline Kael.
On July 9, Warner Bros. hosted a trailer launch for its upcoming Tom Cruise thriller “Digger.” The press event was dominated by influencers with a smattering of trade reporters as well as the main attraction — Cruise himself. But this was no ordinary marketing push. While the shindig was heavy on the spectacle, it was perhaps light on authenticity.
Sometime after disembarking the shuttle on the Burbank lot, the invitees relinquished their phones, leaving them unable to take photos or videos of Cruise posing in front of a 24,000-pound prop shovel or the Smithsonian-esque exhibit featuring the film’s VistaVision camera equipment. Sources familiar with the event say only a Warners-sanctioned photographer and videographer were allowed to capture footage. And yet, a steady stream of attendees later posted similar images alongside fawning praise for their bucket list day with the “Mission: Impossible” star.
“You could take a picture with Tom, but it was taken by their photographer [and] then posted by the influencers like it was totally organic,” says one on-the-lot source. “The whole thing was weird and so controlled.”
A Warner Bros. spokesperson commented: “Tom regularly takes selfies. Due to the size of the groups hosted on the day (more than 200 guests over two windows of time), a photog was offered onsite for efficiency, and was entirely optional.”
The movie influencers covering the event later posted comments on Cruise’s Instagram feed such as: “Thank you for the invite and conversation. Me, You, eyes interlocked… obviously I chocked [sic], what els [sic],” “Had the best time! Thanks for geeking out with me!,” “What an incredible day. Thank you for having us, Tom ” and “Thank you for being so kind! It was an honor to tell you my life story. That day is going to be forever in my heart.” And that’s leaving out all the many heart emojis. Another influencer filmed a clip in his car screeching that he couldn’t believe he’d met Cruise, but that he didn’t have a pic because it was still somewhere inside Warner Bros.’ system. (Certainly not the usual reaction from an Andrew Sarris or David Thomsen back in the day.)
Cruise did sitdown interviews for “Digger,” junket-style, with a former advertising creative-turned-freelancer Patrick Tomasso (241K YouTube subs), the aforementioned Straw Hat Goofy (3.6M TikTok followers) who asks on his social media profile “Can I Be Your Movie Guy?” and another movie influencer called JocWatchlist (481.7K TikTok followers). Attendees even filmed a group promo clip with Cruise, and even the video’s director posted, “Got to direct @tomcruise’s first TikTok @diggerthemovie.”
Then again, the Alejandro González Iñárritu-directed film is a risky swing for the studio, leaving a small margin for error. Warner Bros. officially puts the budget at $125 million. (We hear it’s at least $135 million and possibly more.) But even at $125 million, the movie would need to outpace other Cruise-toplined adult-skewing fare like “American Made” ($135 million worldwide, and the actor’s last movie not based on preexisting IP), or the historical drama “Valkyrie” ($202 million).
“Digger”‘s box-office and anticipated awards-season traction will be determined when the movie opens Oct. 2.
Even with Cruise’s stratospheric star power, his fans might be challenged by the “Digger” version of Cruise complete with old-man prosthetics, a gray balding hairpiece and bad teeth. (Then again he made history as the unrecognizable Les Grossman in “Tropic Thunder.”)
Warners is not alone in seeking to court influencers and creators as marketing saviors in a town desperate to regain its box office footing through youth-oriented marketing. With so much at stake, studios are increasingly leaning on influencers early in the marketing process. “It’s emblematic of the mainstream industry being in a perpetual state of flop sweat,” muses a venerable critic.
“Unpredictable is a bad word in Hollywood… a four-letter word. Every executive from top to bottom is like, ‘How do I remove the unpredictable from my campaign?’” says one veteran marketing guru. “And that’s where the influencers come in.”
Says another veteran critic, “The studios now feel the only safe space they have is with the influencers. People who aren’t legitimate critics or reporters, even though most of them are members of the Critics Choice Awards, the jokiest credential ever.”
It has become standard for studios to invite influencers and creators for fully paid set visits during production and then to hold screenings for those same influencers a week — if not several — in advance of when critics at legacy outlets get their first crack at seeing a film.
A few recent examples of the strategy include “Masters of the Universe” and “Supergirl.” Even Steven Spielberg picked up the influencer trend with a “Disclosure Day” TikTok event two weeks prior to the film’s release, plus a tour of Amblin’s archive with influencer Reece Feldman.
(By contrast, Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey” bucked the trend and banned influencers from early screenings. It is by far the summer’s biggest hit to date.)
Some say it comes down to cost. “Why wouldn’t I try to reach a specific or niche audience for pennies on the dollar that I would have spent through traditional media?” asks a marketer.
Even better for marketing execs looking to sway potential moviegoers, most influencers and creators are not held to any of the journalistic standards that apply to writers at legacy media outlets with ethical guidelines.
“It goes back to the death of expertise, the internet is the death of expertise,” says a high-ranking studio exec. “But people raised on the internet do not care about expertise. Their idea of expertise is how many followers they have on TikTok. It’s a shifting value system.”
When“ Supergirl” was released, several influencers attacked top Variety critic Owen Gleiberman for his largely negative review. “If you are at an age where you can remember life before smartphones then you might care what a critic says. But if you grew up with a smart phone, the creators and influencers — those are your critics,” says a film pro.
But the chorus of influencers defending “Supergirl” did not drive audiences to buy tickets to the box-office bomb.
One exec adds that after sharp media cutbacks during the pandemic, “Critics never regained a new consistent platform. Siskel and Ebert were the last TV critics with influence. The quality and consistency of solid film criticism that speaks to the audience’s viewing tastes is gone, and the critics now seem to be reviewing from a narcissistic place. There is no one who moves the box office. You’re better off going to Letterboxd. The internet is the new critic, with influence flow or algorithms geared to the viewer.”
It’s not hard to find evidence of how the creator economy is eating legacy media’s lunch. “What’s so amazing to me is that when the influencer embargo gets lifted the traditional media outlets write these initial reaction stories which are just pickups of what these influencers post, which I find so sad,” says another entertainment vet.
But… perhaps having a good movie is the recipe for success. A seasoned exec says of Curry Barker’s Gen Z smash “Obsession”: “I couldn’t tell who was pushing the film as an influencer from the people who were just fanatics about the movie. It felt totally organic to the moment.”
This same exec warns that the studios now risk leaning too heavily on a form of marketing they don’t fully understand. “People using social media are very savvy and if it feels ‘paid for’ or ‘sponsored by’ there’s going to be a lot of backlash. Authenticity is everything and it is very hard for studios to manufacture that.”
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