Salsa

I have done a ton of key art designs aka movie posters. Call it my bread and butter over the past umpteen years. I've posted a few random things here and there but this one is different. Yesterday for some reason I got to thinking about a poster I did a really long time ago. Maybe it was because I was looking something else up on IMDB when I got irked at the fact that this certain design is no longer used on the movie's packaging.

Why should that bother me? For many reasons. Which I shall get off my chest via a list:

1. It's one of my best.
2. I worked my ass off to convince the Cannon owner/execs to use my original design and not fuck it up with clutter images (they liked to have helicopters on every poster).
3. It was put up on billboards around LA and also backlit bus shelters several weeks before the movie was released.
4. Several of the bus shelters were broken into and the posters were stolen.
5. The head of Warner Brothers (Terry Semel at the time, I think) and other studio heads called my bosses and complimented them on the great artwork (first and last time that ever happened).
6. The movie was #1 at the box office it's opening weekend, but it tanked the second weekend once the word of mouth got out.
7. I won an award for it.

I believe those items in part and as a whole mean that the art was great and therefore should be used on everything thereafter. But instead, somebody over at MGM (they now control the title) decided to use a version of the key art that was done before my version. A version that I think looks classless and skanky.

First, here is my poster:

Sexy and classy, right? I must admit, it would have been nothing without the wonderful photography by the amazing Randee St. Nicholas and the beautiful actors Angela Alvarado and Robby Rosa, who by the way got married a couple of years after this was done, made a couple of kids and are still married to this day (not that I had anything to do with that).

And here is the key art they are using on the DVD:
<Skanky and classless. Same movie, same actors, different designer and different photographer. Result = Yuk. Tell me you don't agree. I dare you.

Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of this poster. I would like to have a copy of this poster (my version, that is). I found it here in case anyone out there feels the urge to get me a present (I'm still on that spending freeze). You'll find my address in the "I Need Socks" post from a few days ago. You should probably email me first so I don't end up with a thousand posters. A thousand pairs of socks would be fine but I don't think I could handle a thousand Salsa posters...well, unless they come with margaritas.