Take a look at any movie poster from the early ’80s or ’70s and one thing stands out- they’re incredibly wordy. Whereas nowadays there’s just a short tagline, back then they threw paragraphs on there. Seriously, sometimes it looks like they stapled the entire script to the poster. I understand that we all have the collective attention span of a toddler at a carnival, but I can’t quite figure out why this evolution has come about. My best guess is that visual graphics have made such a great leap forward that the visuals in a poster can convey more than they used to be capable of? As in, perhaps studios are adhering to the “Show me, don’t tell me” theory. We should also consider that audiences are so much savvier about upcoming movies these days due to social media and other forms of marketing that we all know the basic premise of most movies before they’re released. Or, the best explanation might be the simplest one: reading all that small text from more than a few feet way is really difficult. Whatever the case, it seems like they expend a lot more effort on movie advertising now than actually ensuring that the final product is, you know, good.