According to the main complaints of the Internet cinephiles, a category of people whose noise (and, often, annoying) is indirectly proportional to the number of components, the main problems of international and national cinema are substantially two: only sequels and films based on comics and Italian films are all the same and nobody risks anymore.

Following the reasoning of this enlightened group that seems to have understood how to solve the cinema crisis, it would be enough that Hollywood, instead of spending 200 million dollars for the new Fantastic 4, spent them to make some original history and that in that of Cinecittà it was stopped making comedies and/or dramas that revolve around that typical Roman bourgeoisie so not very representative of the royal country that lives in apartments of a minimum of 200 meters More space for films other than usual and generically more “courageous”.

The problem is that these films are made and, for one reason or another, nobody goes to see them.

A bit like the present here the prohibited city directed by the good Gabriele Mainetti who, for the umpteenth time, attempted to do something different in the swampy panorama of national cinema and was “rewarded” with just 917,000 euros of collection for a feature film that has cost a lot of more than ten (a disproportionate, by Italian standards).

A predictable failure already because of a marketed marketing planning made with your feet.

What went wrong?

We could close the question by answering, simply: everything.

As already with the previous Freaks Out (who had made 2.7 million at least millions, always a misery related to the budget), the brilliant minds that take care of making people know that a given film exists and that it is worth going to see it, with the “selling” to people the prohibited city had the same strategic ability as a parameter. They are the same Beautiful Mind for which marketing today is summarized with activations, to mention the supreme René Ferretti, “A ca ** or of dog” in which random money is given to the XYZ influencers to say that “this film is a cool #Ad” and #invited events where you try to expand the visibility of something thanks to the desire to be there and to pretend to be “fichaissim*” Very large slice of influencer Wannabe that is satisfied with a sandwich and a free cocktail because for the moment even if you don’t pay it is fine, the likes are needed and there is so much mom and dad who can keep me up to at least 50 years. The result of all this, in terms of the health of the cinemas of the boot, is there for all to see.

But we do not divide and return to ours the forbidden city.

The first trailer DL Film was released online on February 17th.

Those who are talking to you, when he noticed that the movie had revealed himself on YouTube and all the various social networks, immediately thought “Ah, how nice, finally the marketing campaign begins for the new film by Gabriele, who knows when it will come out”.

When the writing “out of March 13 with a special preview on March 8” manifested itself before my eyes, I said, between me and me, words that I cannot repeat here followed by the inevitable consideration that at the box office, it would have been a lake of blood.

And so, in fact, it was.

You don’t empty the American

For heaven’s sake, marketing is not an exact science and it is never 100% sure that by implementing a given campaign planned in a specific way you will end up automatically reaping ripe, sweet and juicy fruits, but there is still a middle ground between the structure and the not to structure.

For a film like the forbidden city it would have made sense to take some more risk and follow a road that normally is beaten constantly by the Americans (and not only). The communication – press and marketing – of a project like this should have foreseen a whole series of activities that could have contributed to increasing awareness of its existence between people.

Visit sets with embarred pieces would have to be organized up to two months before the release, special character posters could be designed already at the end of January to celebrate the Chinese New Year with releases spread on a weekly basis, the video featurettes to be proposed exclusively to generalist and vertical heads on the world of entertainment and, clearly, also make all those stuff, it is made. On social media with influencers, creators and whoever has more. In short: that classic template (then declining in many different and sagaci manners, wanting to do it) of the Made feature film in Hollywood made of the start of official communications on the processing of a film that is made by posting the first official photo from the set on social networks and so on.

Also because there was already a small case History with Mainetti. His called him Jeeg Robot became a small cult of the income that is anything but negligible (five million abundant euros) because at the time (he ran the year 2015) Lucky Red made things well. Presentation at the Rome Film Festival in such a way that the most traditional press and average spoke about it. Event in Lucca Comics & Games with free projection to ensure that there is a lot of newspapers (there is not a lot in the meanders of the web because it is on my social networks, my embarrassing photos in which I am embraced even stuffed by Santamaria and Mainetti at the Astra cinema of Lucca) and the main audience to which the film could be addressed they could know and talk to it for weeks and weeks increasing the curiosity of all those people who had not seen it in Rome. Then a series of special projections before the release.

So the expectation of something is created.

Instead, poor Mainetti touched the proverbial “Giro delle seven churches” in an infinite list of salt from north to south of the boot when the omelette had now been made and there was little to be recovered in terms of proceeds.

Which instead you can do, that is to recover it, now that the forbidden city is streaming on Netflix (but it is also available on home video on physical support).

It is worth it already for the simple fact that it tells an almost fabulous Rome that, in reality, does not exist, in which carbonara and martial arts mix together without continuity by creating one of those “entities” that according to the minority that we mentioned at the beginning of the article are missing in Italian cinema.

If the forbidden city you have lost it on the street in March, it can be there because of all that string of mistakes that we have listed before.

Now you can find it at a button and a tudum away and you have no more excuses to avoid seeing it.