A few weeks ago, I took a look at some of the early hype around The Chronicles of Narnia. WSJ reporter Merissa Marr files a more current look at Disney’s marketing plans, which include overtures to “a panoply of special-interest groups, from the Coast Guard Youth Academy to Ronald McDonald House.”
“We’re not going after any audience we haven’t gone after before,” says Oren Aviv, Disney’s head of movie marketing. “The difference is that this is the first project [where] we’ve gone after all of them at the same time.”
And not just the Christian fans, either: Marr discusses how the film’s producers are reaching out to every public school in America, a good number of the public libraries, military families, and “Hispanic audiences, whom Disney thinks will relate strongly to the theme of family loyalty.” And lest you think this is a lot of work to go to for one holiday blockbuster, the movie’s co-producer, Walden Media, has plans to extend the franchise out for as long as 18 years in order to cover all six sequels to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.