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Never Before Seen Movie Poster Designs From The Original Batman, Supergirl, Fright Night And More!

Oh Hollywood

As silly as it may seem, movie posters can be a deciding factor as to whether or not you go to see a certain film. That’s why they don’t make just one. The San Diego Reader has been busy snapping photos of a huge collection of rejected movie posters from the 1980s and well, we’d hang a few on our wall. 

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In part one of their series, writer Jay Allen Sanford mentions he photographed the posters for a client. They aren’t professionally shot so there’s some glare on a few but they really are rare finds. “Most of these are the REJECTED versions, although several sets include the actual final artwork, as photographed for the official posters,” he writes. “In many cases, several similar designs are seen that show the ideas being worked out, in a creative progression leading up to the iconic images finally approved by the filmmakers and printed up to promote the film. Few of these original paintings and poster proofs have ever been published or seen by the general public.”

Here are four from the 1989 Batman film starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.

And a whole bunch from one of my favorite movies growing up, Supergirl, starring Helen Slater. It’s interesting how different these are from the more classic superhero style they went with. Very much young adult novel style.

An original poster from the original Fright Night.

Remember Howard the Duck with Lea Thompson and Tim Robbins? Get it, he’s a duck. And he’s coming out of an egg shaped like the world.

And finally, Jeff Goldblum as the fly from The Fly.

Check out the unveiling of a bunch more never-before-seen posters in part two and part three. They promise even more to come.

(via V.R. Gallaher’s Fan Service)

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Jill Pantozzi
Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."

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