The SPENCER posters are royally gorgeous.

Can we pause for a second and acknowledge the beautiful and evocative poster campaign for SPENCER?

We were first treated to this beautiful, luxurious and unsettling teaser poster. Even if you don’t know that SPENCER refers to Princess Diana, it’s clear that this is her. 

Lately, studio marketing departments have been creating excellent character posters. The DUNE and THE LAST DUEL 1-sheets come to mind. But this week, Neon knocked it out of the park with these SPENCER posters. The fractured faces – half on, half off – capture the duality of the stoic public face of the monarchy and Diana’s private turmoil. 

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When you see creatives like this, you can’t help but root for the film. 

So, how does SPENCER look on The Quorum? At the moment, the film is scheduled to open wide on November 2nd against ETERNALS. To date, Neon has lived primarily in the specialty space though they did dabble in moderately wide releases with ASSASSINATION NATION (1,403 theaters) and THE BEACH BUM (1,100). This is by far the highest-profile wide release for the distributor. 

In looking for a comp, we need to look no further than RESPECT, released by MGM. Both are biopics, both arrived on the heels of TV shows about the same subject, and both were released by smaller distributors outside the big studios. RESPECT opened to $9M. Will SPENCER match or even beat that?

The film is four weeks from release. When looking at awareness, we can see that SPENCER (dark yellow) has an awareness of 25, whereas RESPECT was at 29 at the same distance out. The chart below shows awareness for the two based on days before release. SPENCER may be beginning its climb, but it was slow going there for a while. The trailer released two weeks ago did little to improve awareness. 

Unfortunately, things look less encouraging on the interest side where SPENCER is well behind RESPECT. While it appears to be inching upwards, the interest score for SPENCER has yet to cross 5.0. Meanwhile, RESPECT opened with a, well…, respectable 5.5.

So while the campaign has been stunningly beautiful, according to The Quorum, it has yet to fully connect with audiences. It looks as though Neon is putting some real muscle into the campaign, so that could all change over the next month. Of course, we will be watching to see if those numbers head north.