Brock says:

That has to be one of the most poorly composed posters I’ve ever seen.

The Beat says:

Frankly, I’m alarmed by Angelina’s malnourished arm! It looks like it belongs to Gollum.

Bill Cunningham says:

It’s going to get even worse – this is the early campaign which has not yet been rated.

When the movie is rated, then the ad campaign has to go through and be approved. They won’t allow the open end of the gun barrels to be pointing outward in fear that someone would think that the characters were shooting at them.

It will be mellowed down to a pose and a type font…

Bill Cunningham says:

You have to have them off the side and obscured so that persons won’t think they are being shot at when they see it on the shelf.

You’ll also note the distinct lack of blood on a rated movie (unless it’s an obscured background texture, used as a matte or font texture). You also cannot have anything that could be identified as a human or animal body fluid.

Unrated editions on the other hand, can (and often do) have those things on the poster or DVD casewrap/box.

If your movie is rated, so must your trailer be rated, all your tv ads, your radio spots, magazine and newspaper ads, marketing materials that will be seen by the general public, etc…

It’s a laborious process which really tends to take the intensity and the “drama” out of the artwork because you know it will never pass muster with the MPAA.

Kelly Tindall says:

That’s not the Wanted poster… It’s the poster for The Lovely Bones.