Audiences and Insitiutions: The woman in Black (Watkins, 2012)

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

I think that the primary audience for the film is for people under the age of 25 (mainly teenagers). It is not aimed at a specific gender, as there isn't any specific bias towards a certain gender in the film. But as it is a psychological/supernatural horror statistics show that psychological horrors have a higher number of female fans, but typically females will not attend horrors by themselves so typically bring their boyfriends with them. Daniel Radcliffe attracts Harry Potter fans, but they too, are of both genders. The secondary target audience is for horror film fans in general.

2)How was The Woman in Black marketed?

Firstly, there was a teaser campaign which involved a teaser trailer which was shown mainly on the internet to start people talking. Competitions and broadcasts were created and shown on Youtube hosted by Daniel Radcliffe which generated a lot of online interest, showing that web 2.0 was a beneficial influence as it was able to reach the younger generation. The film was strongly marketed/promoted by the lead star Daniel Radcliffe. Constantly doing interviews and made appearances on chat shows like The Jonathon Ross show to spread the word of his new film. Merchandising was also released such as t-shirts, mugs and a soundtrack.

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

I think that the marketing materials for the film were appropriate as they suited their target audience well. The idea to advertise the film on social networking sites like Facebook proved to be beneficial due to it being heavily populated by under 25s. Also they very much so used Daniel Radcliffe to their advantage, as it was his first film since the Harry Potters so it attracted the millions of the Harry Potter fans. But as its pegi rating was a 12A, there were loads of complaints due to it being 'too scary' for its rating. I agree with some of the complaints, as it was very jumpy and would likely disturb a twelve year old, even though it didn't involve any traditional gore or child inappropriate issues.

4)What kind of release did the film have? The film had a successful release, reaching a total of $20,874,072 on the opening weekend in the USA, and £3,153,020 in the United Kingdom. The film was screened a total of 3267 times during the opening weekend showing how popular the movie was, showing the expensive marketing paid off.

5)How much did The Woman in Black cost to make? AND what was the industry impact of The Woman in Black? The woman in black cost an estimated approximate $17million. Their marketing budget made up around 50% of this total, leaving the other half to create the film. This as their film total worldwide gross was $127,730,736. The huge marketing revenue paid off as The Woman in Black was the biggest selling British horror in 2012. The impact this had on the industry was that it led to an increase in production of supernatural horrors because this film was in such high demand.

 6)Why do you think the film was so successful? I think a high factor to the root of the films success was due to the use of Daniel Radcliffe. The producers had obvious knowledge that Radcliffe has such a big fan base therefore used this to their full advantage to attract a larger audience. Radcliffe was THE main focus in every revenue of advertisement for the film. This was to encourage the Harry Potter fandom to flock in their thousands to see Radcliffe on screen. As a result of this appeal, the audience included a variety of ages. Even though they spent millions on marketing the film I think it was the second reason why the film was so successful, due to the profit the film produced.