What Happened To The Art Of Movie Poster Design: Dark Phoenix— An Actual Good Design!

For the past couple of months I've been obsessively complaining about the sorry state of current movie poster design. 99% of it is pure, undiluted crap that would embarrass a first year art student. When I look at the artwork lining the walls of my local cineplex, I'm baffled as to how any of it was ever approved, much less printed and sent out for use.

Today I thought I'd try something different for a change, and present a movie posters that's actually GOOD. Bear with me—  I'm a little rusty, as I'm not used to praising poster art.

Here we have the poster for Dark Phoenix, the last of the X-Men movies produced by Fox. 

Even if Fox hadn't been assimilated by the Borg bought up by Disney, this likely would have been the final film, as it would no doubt have killed the franchise but good.

The movie might have been a dud, but damn if that isn't a fine looking poster. Sure, it's got the usual "orange & teal" color scheme that all lobby art is required to have these days, but it features a solid composition.

Best of all, it appears to have been illustrated! That's a rarity in these days of Photoshopped, Frankensteined cinematic posters. I can't find any info on the artist, but whoever drew it, it's obvious they were trying to invoke the style of movie poster god Drew Struzan. I don't think it's him, as he long ago gave up and retired, but it's definitely meant to look like his work.

Even though I like this poster quite a bit, it's far from perfect. One of my biggest complaints about Photoshopped posters is that they're slapped together from multiple images from various sources. This always results in a poster featuring faces lit from a dozen different light sources.

Oddly enough, even though this poster was illustrated, it STILL suffers from "Multiple Lighting Syndrome." Note how Professor X is lit from the right, Cyclops from above and Dark Phoenix from the left!

I have to assume the illustrator simply drew the figures from official studio shots, and just wasn't talented enough to change the light source in his drawings. Dude! That's the whole point of drawing the goddamned thing! You're not limited by photos! You can make it look however you want!