Brad Pitt is just about the biggest movie star there is, but his presence in a movie doesn't guarantee big box office-- last fall's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford barely made $3 million. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not about to take that risk, and even though it seems to be a similarly daring and arty epic, they are selling it based on one thing: Brad Pitt.
That at least seems to be the idea behind the movie's first one-sheet, which made an unofficial debut at Defamer when someone snapped a picture of the poster from a movie theater lobby. It's the image you see at right, and there's a slightly larger one at Defamer. The poster's only image is Pitt's face, with the movie's title written backwards as a nod to the plot, about a man who ages backwards. Even though Pitt ages dramatically throughout the movie, he's featured here as young and handsome, and without that stupid hat he's wearing in all his paparazzi photos.
I'm rooting hard for Benjamin Button, so whatever marketing tactics they dig up that will make people see it is fine by me. Hopefully a high-res version of the poster will show up online at some point and we'll be able to get an even closer look.
