A few people have recommended that we get something like this up from the submit box and my personal box, and I tend to agree. The My Little Pony Movie is less than a month away for most of us, and advertising has just started to really ramp up. The amount of resources pumped into it is something the pony brand has probably never seen before. At least not this focused.
With those resources comes expectations. They want another massive success story like Transformers, and I know I'm not the only one that wouldn't mind the incredible amounts of love that brand gets to migrate over to MLP.
So, here we are. On the cusp of something possibly awesome for more cartoon horse long into the future...
(Note: No MLP Movie spoilers below)
It's no secret that the rise of Friendship is Magic was largely due to it's massive internet success. Not
just thanks to the adult fanbase, but because of how easy it was for everyone to access it. I don't know who at Hasbro decided to go this route, but compared to every other major cartoon network on the planet, they were always incredibly lax on taking down streams of the episodes online. They literally have an easy to find list every Saturday and only ever nailed two or three of the live ones. And we know they are watching.
There was no way The Hub/Disovery Family alone was going to spread pony as far as it has gone. Cable subscriptions are down, and These guys were way up there in an expensive premium package for the majority of viewers. For a company primarily about selling toys, this on it's own would have been a nightmare scenario to get the word out. Somewhere in the chain of command though, a genius marketer decided that going after pirated copies of the show was actually detrimental, and here were are seven years later.
While they have shifted to axing full uploads on Youtube, they are still reasonably easy on it. The videos tend to hit 600k-1 million views before the inevitable guillotine falls. That's a huge amount of people. They know they need to protect their brand for services like Netflix, Amazon video, and iTunes, but they do it in a way that still lets the entire world watch it quickly in near-perfect quality.
Here's where we come to the movie. As with all Hollywood releases, it will most likely be everywhere on the internet a day or two after. This one isn't just about toy sales though. While ratings on the show itself can be sub-par, the movie really does need to do well. We need to rock that box office like we've never rocked before. It's really our chance to show them that this show deserves this kind of heavy budgeting. A good movie performance can only mean better things to come.
Unfortunately, we really can't rely on non-pony sources to pump this one to the top. Youtube trailers for it are regularly bombed by haters, and even Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 67% for "want to see". Stuff like this is important in the modern internet age. Moms looking for a family friendly movie for their kids to go see might skip over it seeing something like that. Luckily we are dropping on a weekend with primarily adult movies, but Lego's Ninja-go is still only a few weeks in gap and will be competing for that kid slot.
So here I am begging you all to, if possible, skip the pirate streams and actually go see it. I have no idea how good it will be outside of being hyped up from the trailers, but if you've never spent money on pony before, this is definitely the time to do it. If you think it will be weird to see it alone, hit up a nearby group or make your own. That's what the post is there for and we are going to keep updating it all the way to release. If you are in a country that isn't airing it until a month later, feel free to watch it early but hit it up when it does show. If you can't see it at all, you are fine too. This is just a call for anyone able.
Lets make this movie a success. Pony probably won't get the cut if it doesn't do so hot, but seeing a big win will definitely tell Hasbro that pumping more money into the MLP property is a worthwhile investment. At the end of the day, more pony is always good.
Now back to posting pony stuff!
