Let us simply be honest. The movie poster has long since passed its heyday, in many ways like the movie trailer. Rather than give us a short, beautiful look at the movie, both trailers and posters tend to either bash us over the head with the entire plot in a grand total of 3 minutes (which says more about the movie than it does the trailer, but still), or they give us so much pointless, mindless foolishness that you want to puke (a.k.a., the poster above). Rarely do posters seem to elicit much interest these days. If we are honest, it is not the artistry of the poster that elicits interest in us very often, it is the fact that the movie has our favorite actor or is a part of our favorite series that intrigues us. This is a shame, since I think that posters, just like editing, composing, directing etc., are a great opportunity for the artistic side of movies to come out.
A good poster should preview something about the story, but not give it away. If it is collage (which far too many are), it should showcase the characters, not the actors playing the characters. If possible, it might even be best to leave out the director's and actors' names altogether. This will allow the artist to catch the viewers attention by the content of the movie, not those involved in making it. A few modern films (especially the Dark Knight) got this right. I would humbly like to suggest that anyone interested in seeing some truly spectacular posters check out a group called Mondo Posters. They take movies and make beautiful posters for them, although they are not the official posters for the films (goodness only knows why). I have included a small sampling below.
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