What's with the poor advertising for new films here lately?

There seem to have been a number of films recently that have run few to no trailers in theaters before release, and don't show up on tv until two weeks or so before they drop. Specifically Jack the Giant Killer and Dead Man Down off the top of my head, but in the past six months or so there were a few that had almost no advertisement beforehand.

Why spend millions on a film if you're not going to make the potential audience aware?

Marketing is expensive. Maybe studios are hoping for more word of mouth?

It's not unprecedented. I literally never saw a preview for Equilibrium on TV when it came out years ago. Still, it's not very cost effective. They save on advertising but hardly put any butts in the seat.

Can't speak for most films but Jack The Giant SLAYER was actually completed 2 years ago so maybe their budget was already blown for marketing...?

As far as Equilibrium, it was a straight to dvd release here in Australia, I never knew it made the big screen.

Yeah, it was in theaters here for about three weeks. Horribly advertised, but not surprising considering Dimension's, or whoever put it out, website was down for about a month around the time it was released. Had to convince my friends to check it out, though they enjoyed it as well.

Just don't see how that cash is going to be recouped when no one heads to theaters.

I work around a bunch of televisions at my job and I've seen a ton of advertisements for both Dead Man Down and Jack the Giant Killer.

I had never seen an ad for "The Sessions," until my family rented "Creatures of the Southern Wild," - another movie I'd known nothing about.