Boots Riley’s Grassroots Plea to Get People Into Movie Theaters Is Iconic

Movie promotion can, oftentimes, be a bizarre thing to witness. How late is too late to reveal the “final trailer” for a project? How can you avoid a response akin to Ugly Sonic or that one trailer for Tom Cruise’s The Mummy? And, at the end of the day, how do you even drive people to make the effort to see something in theaters?

Writer-director Boots Riley, whose latest film I Love Boosters arrived in theaters this past weekend, has taken that latter mission to heart… and honestly, it has been delightful to witness. Virtually every social media platform you can think of — Twitter, Threads, Instagram, etc — has been dotted with posts of Riley encouraging people to go see the film.

Sometimes, these are just retweets of people’s existing reactions to I Love Boosters, and sometimes they’re a full-on call to arms from the director. It started with jokes about how people should see it over The Mandalorian and Grogu (in part because, in Riley’s words, Grogu’s going to make his budget back anyway). When one person tweeted that the power went out at the end of their screening, he jokingly blamed it on “Grogu’s ass.”

But it has now stretched to Riley playfully giving some tweets flack for not seeing it as soon as possible, whether they’re waiting for Discount Tuesday, making plans for later in the week, or waiting for it to hit streaming. The heartiest laugh I got out of it all came from a tweet from @DijahSB, in which they said: “i said out loud i’m going to see i love boosters this week and boots riley appeared in my living room, took a butter knife out of his hat and threatened me to go see it today so im going today.” The tweet was, of course, retweeted by Riley.

As fun as the bit has been, it has also been a peek behind the curtain of film distribution, and the ways that mid-to-low budget movies often fare in the theatrical landscape. Amid the jokes, Riley has also repeatedly shined a light on the logistical and financial side of I Love Boosters‘ release, and how a better opening weekend at the box office ensures that more people will get to see it in the days afterwards, instead of it being pulled from theaters where it might be underperforming.

A New Kind of Viral Marketing

The tweets have also, in a roundabout way, become the most viral piece of marketing for I Love Boosters yet. For me, personally, I see a lot of parallels between it and the comic book industry, which is often filled with creators personally promoting their own book throughout social media, regardless of whether it’s an indie title or a Big Two superhero book.

It’s all about finding a way to not only make people aware, but make them excited, especially during a holiday weekend filled with so many options to choose from. While Riley’s 2018 film Sorry to Bother You has firmly earned cult classic status across the past eight years, and I Love Boosters boasts an ensemble cast of a number of beloved faces, there have still been a number of people who weren’t even aware of the movie. As Riley tweeted on Tuesday morning, “When I went to the grove yesterday, 7 people told me they were there this weekend instead of next because of my tweeting and 3 of those said they had just learned about I Love Boosters for the 1st time this weekend from my tweets.”

Over the weekend, I Love Boosters grossed an estimated $3.72 million… so it seems like the tweet-filled marketing campaign has been working. In a string of tweets on Tuesday morning, Riley revealed that: “Every day of the weekend, movies box office drops a certain percentage each day. I Love Boosters had the least percentage drop of all the movies this weekend, by a fair amount. This tells me the word of mouth is working.” He also revealed in a separate tweet that: “Neon’s head of distribution is on the phone all day with exhibitors pitching to keep screens. Getting your ticket today still helps with that.”

I’m not alone in saying this, but this year’s box office has felt like something special. Movies of different sizes and genres and scopes are all finding success, instead of it just being a carousel of infallible blockbuster franchises. In that healthy ecosystem, it’s nice to see a film from one of the most distinct and unpredictable directors working today getting a seat at the table… even if it’s taking a lot of tweets to get there.

I Love Boosters is now playing exclusively in theaters.

(featured image: NEON)

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