STRATEGY & RESEARCH

POSITIONING STUDY Extensive survey with 1,300 moviegoers to ensure that not just the trailer, but the entire campaign follows a positioning that will get us the biggest audience possible. Moviegoers let us know what they like most about our story, our characters, and the tone they’re looking for. The results were very positive, moviegoers are really excited about The Wedding Ringer regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity. What follows is the best architecture for our campaign.

MEET JIMMY CALLAHAN Cool and confident Jimmy Callahan is a professional best man who can handle any scenario and any disguise – he is the guardian angel to grooms everywhere. A great character cuts across all ages, races, and genders. Of all of our characters, audiences are most excited and intrigued by Jimmy. Audiences feel that this character, and his profession, are unique. They like to see that Jimmy’s good at his job, and takes it seriously.

DOUG RAISES THE STAKES In order to keep his fiancée Gretchen, Doug Harris has told the biggest lie of his life: That a military chaplain named Bic Mitchum is going to be his best man, and he has seven groomsmen. That Jimmy doesn’t think The Golden Tux is possible makes the audience excited to see them try. The audience (especially females) like that Doug is doing this for love. Now that the audience is invested in our two leads, and the stakes are high, we can really unleash the humor.

THE BIG LIE To prevent Gretchen from discovering the truth, Jimmy must pull out all the stops. He rehearses his ‘Bic Mitchum’ character, learns everything there is to know about Doug, hires a crew to become groomsmen and assigns them roles, and creates fake memories by staging photographs. The audience loves that this gives the plot a heist-like quality. They’ve seen that Jimmy is successful, they love seeing all the clever reasons why he’s so good at his job. The audience can enjoy the more edgy, outrageous humor because it’s in service of protecting the big lie.

THE BROMANCE As they go to extremes to pull off the big lie, the line between what’s real and what’s fake begins to blur, as Jimmy and Doug start to become real friends. The big lie provides a setting for outrageous humor, but having emotional stakes elevates The Wedding Ringer over other R-rated comedies. Showing that the film has real heart seals the deal for many females, and allows us to get away with edgier humor where we want to.