The official WORST STUDIO COVER ART thread. Post your worst covers! (1 Viewer)

[Brisby]

 

[GMpasqua]

the Lost art of the painting

 

[JeremyLG]

This thread reminds me why I still enjoy looking at my Vinly album covers more than my CD's. Much more room to breathe and enjoy the art.

 

[marsnkc]

This thread reminds me why I still enjoy looking at my Vinly album covers more than my CD's. Much more room to breathe and enjoy the art.

...and why I've held on to a few laserdiscs. Just for the art.
I have a special fondness for the 'pyramid' type art a la Alvarez Kelly (#77), and anyone defending your typical DVD/BD cover as more eye catching need only compare the beauty and dynamism of The Scalphunters (esp. the second one), The Man Who Would Be King (#78) and Paint Your Wagon (#81) to their depressingly bland, cut and pasted, photoshopped DVD counterparts. As others have pointed out, the latter look cheap, as if they're intended only to be off-loaded to your local 99cent store or bargain bin of your big-box emporium. Anyone wishing to devalue their product need only contact the geniuses responsible for these horrors.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Originally Posted by JoHud
As far as blu-ray covers

The irony here is that the DVD releases of the first two titles used the original poster art.

 

[GMpasqua]

I think one of the reasons studios don't use the original art is because the DVD used it and they want to make sure no one confuses a blu-ray for a DVD - But how stupid has the American public become that a blue case, smaller than a DVD, and with the words "Blu-ray" at the top center - be mistaken for a DVD? I'll bet it happens quite often

 

[Radioman970]

Oliver! :tu: Great choice. I couldn't believe how awful that cover was. Looked like dollar dvd. Well, now it practically IS. But upon release it must have turned a lot of potential buyers off.

 

[marsnkc]

The irony here is that the DVD releases of the first two titles used the original poster art.
  

Can't speak for the others, but I just pulled my DVD of 'King' and you're absolutely right, so most likely Greg is correct in his assertion (proven by the number of complaints I've seen on Amazon that the returned BD won't play on their DVD players!) Saddest thing about the BD cover of 'King' is that a similar photo of Connery was relegated to the back of the DVD, where it belongs!

 

[Professor Echo]

Here is a case where the Blu cover isn't inherently bad,but I think it pales next to ALL of the original artwork. The trouble is, yes, lack of imagination and in this case, a certain PASSION that is conveyed in the art. The Blu Ray makes this grand epic look like just another generic historical adventure. It's just dull. Out of context it means nothing to young people today who only know SPARTACUS from the cable series. Kirk who?

Personally I really like the elegance of the solid red background with the roman coin design, a thinking man's epic adventure, but I wouldn't expect something so understated to be used nowadays. The other posters focus more on the action and they are effective too.

 

[GMpasqua]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo
Here is a case where the Blu cover isn't inherently bad,but I think it pales next to ALL of the original artwork. The trouble is, yes, lack of imagination and in this case, a certain PASSION that is conveyed in the art. The Blu Ray makes this grand epic look like just another generic historical adventure. It's just dull. Out of context it means nothing to young people today who only know SPARTACUS from the cable series. Kirk who?

Personally I really like the elegance of the solid red background with the roman coin design, a thinking man's epic adventure, but I wouldn't expect something so understated to be used nowadays. The other posters focus more on the action and they are effective too.

Doesn't the Blu-ray cover use some of the poster art from the late 80's early 90 Restortation release?

I actually think the blu-ray cover is quite nice. "Spartacus" never really had beautiful poster art to begin with

 

[Lee-c]

My number 1 vote goes for this cover. Kind of hard to imagine one worse than this, just awful. Val Kilmer looks like some kind of disfigured wax dummy. haha How little talent and how much poor taste must one possess to make a home video cover like this for a movie? And this guy gets paid to make trash like this??

 

[cineMANIAC]

There are a lot of DVDs shown here that I've overlooked just because of the dollar-store artwork. My reasoning is that if the artwork looks cheap and ugly then the movie isn't worth my time. Bad art just diminishes the appeal of the film. I know it's the movie that counts, but...

 

[WinstonCely]

Here is a case where the Blu cover isn't inherently bad,but I think it pales next to ALL of the original artwork. The trouble is, yes, lack of imagination and in this case, a certain PASSION that is conveyed in the art. The Blu Ray makes this grand epic look like just another generic historical adventure. It's just dull. Out of context it means nothing to young people today who only know SPARTACUS from the cable series. Kirk who?

Personally I really like the elegance of the solid red background with the roman coin design, a thinking man's epic adventure, but I wouldn't expect something so understated to be used nowadays. The other posters focus more on the action and they are effective too.

I've got an original pressing of the soundtrack record for Spartacus and it's the red background cover with coins. I kinda like how stark it is.

 

[Todd Erwin]

I completely forgot how bad this cover was!

Here's the original movie poster, which was also used for the VHS and LaserDisc.

Originally Posted by Lee-c
My number 1 vote goes for this cover. Kind of hard to imagine one worse than this, just awful. How little talent and how much poor taste must one possess to make a home video cover like this for a movie? And this guy gets paid to make trash like this??

 

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by GMpasqua
I actually think the blu-ray cover is quite nice. "Spartacus" never really had beautiful poster art to begin with

 

[Professor Echo]

Not only are the majority of these questionable as far as "Martini Movies" would seem to indicate (I don't think anyone in any of these movies ever drinks a martini nor offers any particular inspiration for the viewer to do same), but the similarly incongruous covers seem to be on the level of a pre-school cut and paste collage. Maybe the art department had too many martinis or not enough. Honestly, while the poster for GETTING STRAIGHT is no great shakes, look at the corresponding DVD cover. I mean, WTF?

 

[Charles Smith]

Yeah, I'd wondered about that totally misleading "Martini Movies" moniker. Too bad, because there are certainly some delightful "Mad Men" era films from the late 1950s and early 1960s that would comprise a more coherent series by that name.

 

[JohnMor]

Yep, Real Genius is really hideous, although the original poster art is no great shakes either. And the "Martini Movies" covers are rotten as well. Sigh.

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by Lee-c
My number 1 vote goes for this cover. Kind of hard to imagine one worse than this, just awful. How little talent and how much poor taste must one possess to make a home video cover like this for a movie? And this guy gets paid to make trash like this??

The thing that so laughably bad about this one is it looks like they took a small Val Kilmer face and stuck it on a larger Val Kilmer head! The face looks angled different then the skull. It's freakish! Who thought that making this film look horrific was a great marketing ploy?

 

[Craig S]

The latest "stack o' heads" disaster from Miramax:

The grinning Michael Caine shot is especially disturbing...