Film Industry: Black Widow

 1) List the companies involved in the creation of Black Widow. You may wish to use Black Widow's IMDB entry to help with this - see the company credits page - but the answers can also be found in the notes above.

2) What is conglomerate ownership and how does it link to Black Widow?

Most major media companies are conglomerates that own a range of smaller companies (called subsidiaries). An example of this is Disney owning Marvel. This links to Black widow because Disney owns marvel. This means that they can afford to make more expensive films, market them around the world at great expense and ensure that they are hugely profitable. 

3) Analyse the film trailer for Black Widow. What aspects of the trailer tell you this is a big-budget blockbuster movie?

Some features that tell us the film was made with a big budget blockbuster is by there being well-known actors and the protagonist Scarlett Johansson is also very well-known. There are also lots of different settings and locations such as: 

• Saebo, Orsta, More og Romosdal, Norway.
• Budapest, Hungary.
• Andalesnes, Rauma.
• Zoltan utca 18, Budapest, Hungary. (Where Natasha meets Yelena in Budapest)
• Morocco

4) How was Black Widow promoted to an audience? List at least three different methods used by the film's marketing campaign and why they were effective in promoting the film. 

- It was advertised on social media and public transports e.g buses. This was very helpful as people were aware that a new movie is being published and it may have got marvel fans excited as another marvel movie is being released. 

- A poster. This made it clear to people who the actors were in the movie and also gave people a vision of what kind of movie it is.

- A protagonist who is famous. This was helpful as people who were Scarlett Johansson's fans may have watched it because they knew she was the main character of the movie.

5) What was the production budget for Black Widow and how much did it make at the box office?

The production budget for Black widow was $200m and it only made $379m at the worldwide box office due to the pandemic. Marvel would have spent well over $100m on marketing the film globally so the profit level is very low. 

6) Would you consider Black Widow a successful Hollywood blockbuster? Why?

I would not as normally for marvel movies they make much more profit than that and in this case they only made $179 million in profit. However, $100 million of that went to marketing. I think the main reason to why they didn't make that much in profit was because of the pandemic which means less people were going out at the time.

7) Who regulates the film industry in the UK?

Films in the UK are regulated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).

8) What age rating was Black Widow given? Why?

Black widow was given the age rating on 12A due to the "moderate violence" and "injury detail".

9) Read this feature on Marvel using a fan's tweet to help market the film. Why is audience interaction such an important aspect of modern film marketing? 

Audience interaction is an important aspect because people will post about films hoping to have it displayed on billboards which means lots of people will be influenced to watch the movie.

10) What other interesting details can you pick out of the article about Black Widow marketing? For example, you 

may want to make a note of some statistics, ratings or how they used TikTok influencers to help promote the film.

Star Power implies that people will want to see a film with a certain star in it. Most mainstream films and blockbusters will use Star Power to attract audiences to their film. The main star in Black Widow is Scarlett Johansson who is very well known and has established fans.