How was your Fourth of July weekend? Mine was good. Quiet. Certainly devoid of low-flying helicopters and crazy movie marketing stunts.
Of course, I could have changed all that if I had just gone down to the Jersey Shore, say around Ocean Grove. Apparently, that's where the marketing minds behind G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra decided to hatch their plan to lure in summer moviegoers. LatinoReview reader, BJ (sic), wrote in to tell us all about it:
I was sitting on the beach in Ocean Grove, NJ yesterday when a Black helicopter stopped to hover just off shore about 35 feet in the air. All of the fourth of July revelers hoarding the beach ran towards the water to see what was going on.
Then as it slowly approached shore, a rope ladder rolled out and what appeared to be a diver climbed to the bottom of the rope ladder. As I approached the water's edge, the helicopter the gleaming black helicopter turned only to reveal the G.I. Joe Movie logo as the diver began to wave. The helicopter the proceeded to hover south down the shore with the diver hanging on just over the water for as far south as we could see.
It was very cool as it felt like GI Joe had come to life for me and [it was] effective as EVERYONE I ran into on the Jersey Shore was talking about it.
Well, I'd be talking about it too -- I am now -- but I certainly wouldn't be moved to spend money on the film. Then again, I didn't even go to the beach, much less see a real helicopter, so maybe I'm just bitter.
Here are two pics of the marketing ploy, courtesy of BJ:
And in case you have any reason to doubt BJ's claims, I found some supporting evidence on, of all places, Twitter:
I guess Paramount hopes that the more you know about dangling helicopter stunts, the more you'll want to see G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra in theaters. Are they right? Comment away.
>> Special thanks to BJ for e-mailing us and for the great pics.
