Research into link between poster, trailer and magazine cover

I've decided to look at the 2008 action thriller, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army as my case study. The character of Hellboy is unique in the fact that despite his resemblance to a typical villain, with his bright red, satan-like body and intimidating build, he is actually the protagonist of the series!

Magazine Cover

Here is the March 2008 Empire cover. The title of the magazine has been modified to complement the theme of Hellboy, playing with the idea of 'hell' and fire. The colour of red and the flames were included to make a direct reference to the firm. The central image is a huge close up of Hellboy himself, he is looking angry and full of spite. This provides a narrative to the film and shows the audience that he has some kind of score to settle. The text "you and whose golden army?" is a play on the phase 'you and what army?', this it to link it to the title of the film, furthermore the text is gold to make another link. Rosary beads are used to further build the narrative of the film, contrasting the idea of religion to link to 'hell'.

Poster

Here is the official Hellboy 2: The Golden Army poster. Here we see a character who is certainly presented as powerful, we see he huge fist hitting the ground with debris rebounding back upwards. In his other hand, we see him holding a gun, a lethal weapon, this indicates that the film is going to be full of action and violence. It is somewhat unusual for a protagonist to use a gun, if you look at other sci-fi protagonists, such as The Doctor, Catniss from The Hunger Games and members of the X-Men, they rely on their other skills to fight. The fact that Hellboy has a gun in the poster shows that he is different to the others, he is unique. On the other hand you see his cape flailing in the wind, which is typical of a 'hero' in a sci-fi film. His facial expression shows anger and frustration, perhaps implying that he has a issue he needs to deal with (As he does in the Empire cover). The poster has some text located at the top, saying "Believe it or not he's the good guy", showing once again that Hellboy is different to other protagonists.

Trailer

The trailer is fast paced, action packed and full of clips typical of the genre. The 'Hellboy II' title is also carried over, making it clear that they are all linked and related, the same font and style is used to create a house style. There are many supernatural creatures shown in the trailer, making the link to the theme of hell clear. For example at 0.27, a mutant vampire-looking character emerges, who then releases a giant ogre. This builds on the sci-fi, supernatural theme that the poster and the magazine cover showed, with a major focus on Hellboy. Hellboy himself is introduced as being a protagonist who doesn't stick to typical conventions, this is emphasised in the trailer, magazine and poster.