Making a movie requires skill. However, do you know what requires even more skill? Designing a DVD cover that doesn't embarrass the movie inside. The ability to create even an average looking box art is a talent that almost no people have. You?d be better off asking your grandparents to give you tips about how to cut down a funny thought into one-hundred-and-forty characters. It's inexplicably difficult.
These are seven bad DVD covers, created by the recently unemployed.
THINK LIKE A MAN
You can tell how great a romantic comedy is going to be by the ratio of number of people in love to the number of people shrugging or acting confused. If it's too even, you won't know which romance to root for. But if it's 2:1, you know that it's going to be great. Two people are falling in love, and one guy is going to die lonely. But that last guy? He's hilarious.
Think Like A Man had about four different same ideas to choose from for a box art, and the design team decided to combine them all. The upper left deals with a baffled man and his domineering succubus. The upper right is a fun, flirty girl and a guy who wasn?t told that his picture would go on a DVD cover.
The middle left is about to reveal his secret STD. The middle right is spying on said STD?s. Kevin Hart, in the bottom left, just wants the respect and caring that he?ll never get. And the bottom right, well that guy, he just doesn't understand women! The girl, on the other hand, has a face that is just now coming to terms with the emotion that she's trying to feel, but the photographer was in a rush.
I have no idea what the plot of this movie is. The back of it attempts to give some kind of a synopsis, but I feel like they?d be better off just typing ?dkjshdkshlkjsaljdkldsnklnsdklndfklnkdlsf THINK LIKE A MAN!? and hope for the best.
AGE OF HEROES
Seriously, that's the best picture you could get of Sean Bean? Did he refuse to pose, so you just got him candidly taking a shit on the sidewalk? This DVD cover has a lot going on with it. Sean Bean is contorted in turd-driven agony. There's a bunch of paratroopers dropping beside his head with the guy who I assume is leading them up in front. Then, at the bottom, there's a bunch of guys running in V formation from an explosion, because nothing says ?heroic? or even ?realism? like patterned fleeing from an inferno.
But still, that's the best you could do with Sean Bean? There's no free domain pictures of him that you could use? Anything would be better than what they have. Sean Bean blowing his nose, or Sean Bean screaming at a cast member would be more fitting than Sean Bean taking on a horrendous bowel movement.
THE ULTIMATE FEAR OF SPEED
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I apologize for the lack of image size. It's all I could find. But I couldn't just forget The Ultimate Fear Of Speed once I'd seen it. It's a sex comedy action film, and since sex comedy box arts designers are chosen by asking a room to draw a stick figure and hiring whoever gets frustrated first, while action covers are designed by people asked to draw the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the words ?fire scream?, it was doomed to be an interesting and awful piece of work.
The girl on the right has ruined a poor scuba outfit to get her costume. She's joined by Mad Libs for ?something Italian and stupid,? a soccer player, an Asian woman(?) and a body builder, who took acting classes from Sean Bean?s Age Of Heroes DVD picture. Below it is the greatest thing ever, though.
A red car has an exploding behind, and from the flames bursts a yellow car, with a guy and girl intertwined on top, feeling hot and ready from the blaze. A guy is kicking another kicking guy so hard that it actually propels him into the air. This DVD cover is like what happens when you ask a deity to create physics and he sneezes while doing it. It breaks all logic and standards, and whatever movie that's inside is sure to be a disappointment.
GONE
Calling this DVD cover ?uninspired? would be an insult to writer?s block. Amanda Seyfried is there with a gun, looking dazed, as a forest blurs behind her. I've seen more intricate designs on unopened copy paper. If you asked me what this movie was about, based off the cover, I'd respond by dying.
The best part is that they repeat the ?NOTHING WILL STOP HER? tagline on the front and the back. Was there no other phrase that they could use? I'm not going to fault the guy who made this for his lack of creativity. The guy's final project at art school was a turkey shaped like his hand.
CRIME + PUNISHMENT IN SUBURBIA
When you're taking a classic work, translating it into fart noises and jerk off squishes, and then making a movie about the new interpretation, you can't just use an ?and.? That's what your Grandma would use, and she doesn't know shit about the hip modern audience of today. Kids today are too trendy for an ?and.? They need something with some style. They need a ?+? sign, because no one knows what they're doing and we're all pretty retarded when we're doing it.
What is wrong with these teenager?s faces? It looks like they just stepped out of an acid bath, and the first thing to go was the texture from their cheeks. The girl in the middle tries to remain sexy looking, but the glow on her face and in the halls behind her can only come from an idiot?s idea of color tone or the reactor that is currently mutating her.
The two guys don't fare well either. The one on the left seems to be smitten with the girl in the middle, and, rather than having a shirt that actually looks like it's had some artistic touches added, it just appears to be covered in sand. The guy on the right rolled around on the beach too, and the tone has dissolved his chin into a giant nothingness, as his face melts away. That must be why he looks so sad.
BATTLEFIELD EARTH
At this point, not too many more jokes can be made about Battlefield Earth. It was a failure in every sense of the word, and every time I use the word ?failure? I have to pay the team who made Battlefield Earth, because they most certainly own that word too. Battlefield Earth is the slavery of cinema, something everyone is ashamed of and tries to move past, and only the people who’ve seen it can use the ?B? word.
You might think that they?d try to hide how terrible it is with a decent looking DVD, but since you whisper ?Battlefiend Earth?? into the ear of a dying man whose wife you stole for maximum cruelty, it seeps out onto the box.
Take note that this is the special edition. That can only mean that it improved on the regular edition, which was probably just a crate labeled ?venomous snakes.?
John Travolta wears his dreadlocks and tries to look menacing, but if he wasn?t John Travolta, you'd be stuck wondering how no one could Photoshop the homeless man from the Greek festival out of the picture. The guy running has stupid dreadlocks too, and a worse expression. He seems disgusted with himself for even being chased by some sci-fi copters on this movie box. Me too, running guy. Me too.
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER
I don't have a lot to say about this one. It's simplistic, which helps, but it's got one major flaw, a flaw reminiscent of the Sean Bean disaster earlier. Is that the best picture of Cary Grant in your archives? He looks like he's being morphed into a troll. As soon as he leaves that embrace, Bilbo Baggins is going to trick him into staying out in the sunlight. If Cary Grant saw the Cary Grant on this DVD cover, you'd have to remove at least one shrieking Cary Grant from the room.