An action-packed and colourful montage by the artist Tongdee features on this Thai poster for the release of the 1991 sci-fi thriller Timebomb. Produced by Raffaella De Laurentiis, the daughter of the legendary Italian producer Dino, the film was helmed by Avi Nesher, an Israeli producer, screenwriter and director. American actor Michael Biehn was chosen for the lead role after the director saw his performance in James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) and British actress Patsy Kensit (who’s now mostly retired from acting) also appears. The plot is described thusly on Wikipedia:

Mild-mannered watchmaker Eddy Kay (Biehn) runs into a burning building to save a trapped woman and is featured in the news as a result. Watching the news, Colonel Taylor (Richard Jordan) is shocked to see Eddy, whom he had assumed to be dead. A game of cat and mouse begins as Eddy, with the help of psychiatrist Dr. Anna Nolmar (Patsy Kensit), tries to discover his past and why they want him dead.Eddy and Dr. Nolmar discover that he was part of a secret government program to create assassins. Using various sensory deprivation and brainwashing techniques, the assassins could be sent to infiltrate other organisations and facilities undetected and carry out programmed missions. Eddy manages to capture and interrogate one of the female assassins (Tracy Scoggins), finding out the Colonel’s current assassination plan. He then plots to confront Colonel Taylor and put an end to the assassination program once and for all.

The excellent artwork on this Thai poster is by Tongdee Panumas (he signs his posters with just his first name) who was an incredibly prolific Thai film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s. I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947, so if anyone has any more details please get in touch.

Colourful artwork by the artist Tongdee Panumas on this poster for the Thai release of the belated sequel to the 1982 original, Beastmaster 2. The film was directed by Sylvio Tabet who was the co-producer on the first film. The original screenwriter also returned, although judging by the number of screenwriter credits on the film’s IMDb page it clearly went through multiple re-writes before making it to the screen. The only member of the first film’s cast to return was Marc Singer who plays the titular character, also known as Dar. The plot is described thusly on Wikipedia:

Dar, the Beastmaster, is back and now he has to deal with his half-brother, Arklon (Wings Hauser), and a sorceress named Lyranna (Sarah Douglas) who have escaped to present day Los Angeles. Despite the name, the movie is not about traveling through a time portal, but traveling through a portal to a parallel universe that 1991 Earth exists in. Dar and his animal companions, Ruh, Kodo, Podo and Sharak, must follow them through the portal and stop them from obtaining a neutron bomb. During his visit, Dar meets a rich girl named Jackie Trent (Kari Wuhrer) and they become friends.

The film was roundly panned by critics and largely ignored by audiences on its release. Today it’s considered to be one of the worst sequels ever made. The handful of reviews on IMDb are largely unforgiving, for example:

If you are ever in the mood for a truly terrible film, it would be hard to find something that could even compare to this. I have spent a lot of time watching a lot of terrible movies just for the sheer joy I get from it, and man, this is one of the worst. This movie was so bad, I had to buy the third Beastermaster online. That one wasn’t as bad, which is amazing since it was straight to video.

The ending sounds unintentionally hilarious:

During the closing credits (at least in the version that hit theatres), the Beastmaster can be seen running into the sunset. This sunset is actually a painted backdrop, and after a while, you can clearly discern that the guy is actually running in place for almost two minutes as the credits roll! A perfect end to a perfect movie!

Tongdee Panumas (he signs his posters with just his first name) was an incredibly prolific Thai film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s. I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947, so if anyone has any more details please get in touch.

Note that the line across the centre of the poster is where the original artboards onto which Tongdee paints were joined. Thai artists apparently often struggled to find large enough canvases to paint on.

Steven Spielberg’s folllow up to JM Barrie’s classic Peter Pan story featured Robin Williams playing a grown-up Peter Pan, now called Peter Banning and working as a corporate lawyer, who has forgotten his life in Neverland. Whilst visiting England his two children are kidnapped by a mysterious stranger and it’s not long before Tinkerbell [Julia Roberts] appears to return him to the world he once knew so that he can reclaim his youthful spirit and save his family.

The film was roundly panned by critics but was nevertheless considered a box-office success (with worldwide takings over $300 million) and is one of those films that splits audiences in two. Today, Hook continues to have as many fans as it does detractors, with some calling it Spielberg’s worst film and others lauding it as a misunderstood classic.

Whatever people thought of the film there’s no question that this final release poster by Drew Struzan was a definite success. It followed a very minimal teaser poster by John Alvin, which doesn’t even feature the name of the film. In his must-have book ‘The Art of Drew Struzan’, the artist talks about the creation of the poster:

‘We had a very long time to work on it, and you know what means: I wound up recombining heads, seemingly forever. ‘Round and ’round, for more than six months; everybody at Sony who needed to stake a reputation had an opinion on what the poster should be.

Nevertheless, Drew used the strong relationship he had built with Spielberg on previous projects to make sure his designs were seen by the director:

(…) I took each group of drawings directly to Steven. The first time, I walked onto the set where they were shooting Peter Pan in the tree stump. Steven stopped everything after he called “cut”, we laid out all the art on this huge table, and he stood there for like half an hour talking with me about it. Now, the cost-per-minute budget on a movie this big is how much? But Steven can do what he wants.

Not everyone was happy with the work in progress, as Drew recalls:

Dustin [Hoffman] said, “It’s not that I don’t like my portrait – it’s beautiful. But I don’t think it’s my character”. He wanted Hook to look “less villainous”. So off I went to Dustin’s house (…) we’re walking and taking and suddenly he goes into Actor Mode to explain what he wants (…) Finally I had to paint out a third of the picture and redesign it. He loved it. They all loved it.

Drew clearly loves the design but he notes that, in a twist of Hollywood madness, the poster wasn’t actually in cinemas until a week after the film opened.

The book (which is also available on Amazon.com and from all good bookshops) features many different versions of the poster before this one was ultimately chosen. Only Drew could have nailed the faces, particularly those of Williams and Hoffman, as well as this.

To see a gallery of the other posters by Drew I’ve collected click here.

The original trailer is on YouTube.

This is the original Thai poster for the release of the unforgettable thriller The Silence of the Lambs, a film that would win multiple awards across the globe following its release in 1991. Based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Harris which was the second to feature the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a sociopathic serial killer who was the focus of several of his novels (in fact all but one) and featured in multiple films and a TV series since his first appearance in the novel Red Dragon (later released as the 1986 film Manhunter). The Silence of the Lambs was directed by Jonathan Demme and based on a screenplay by Ted Tally who would later adapt Harris again with another version of Red Dragon in 2002.

Jodie Foster gives a deservedly award-winning performance as the young FBI recruit Clarice Starling who excels during her training and is given the task of interviewing the incarcerated Lecter (a mesmerising, against-type performance by Anthony Hopkins). The Bureau wants to see if Lecter can help them in their hunt for another serial killer, dubbed Buffalo Bill, who is on the loose and has been skinning the corpses of his female victims. Lecter decides to toy with Clarice and she must work to gain his trust, whilst the audience are shown Bill picking up his next victim. The tension rises as Clarice closes in on the killer through clues given by Lecter and the stage is set for a nerve-shredding finale. The film won the ‘big five’ at the 1991 Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best Actress for Hopkins and Foster, as well as Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Tally. It would prove to be a huge hit across the globe and enter the cultural lexicon in a significant way. The character of Lecter continues to fascinate and a recent TV series (called simply Hannibal) was a cult success.

This Thai poster features excellent artwork by Tongdee Panumas (he signs his posters with just his first name) who was an incredibly prolific Thai film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s. I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947, so if anyone has any more details please get in touch.

The faces of Foster and Hopkins of course feature on the classic American posters, including the Style C one sheet which merges the two, although this is more like the UK quad. At first glance I thought that Tongdee had painted the montage at the bottom over a reproduction of the photographic originals but on closer inspection it’s clear that he repainted the whole lot, including the intricate details on the infamous Deaths Head moths (featuring the freaky ‘skull’ image). The montage below is unique to this poster and features four depictions of Lecter at various points in the film.

This is the original Thai poster for the release of the sixth entry in the beloved horror franchise of A Nightmare Before Elm Street. Entitled Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, it’s one of the weakest entries in the series, and that’s saying something! The finality implied by the title was nothing of the sort and a sequel was released only three years later. This was also the only film in the series to feature 3D sequences and these feature during the final 10 minutes. The 3D effects are largely terrible and had to be watched with the frustrating Anaglyph method, which uses a red filter on one eye and blue on the other. According to this fan site over 11 million pairs of glasses were distributed to cinemas at the time of release.

I watched the film again recently and had a hard time following the plot, if I’m honest. It’s set 8 years in the future (1999) and Freddy has killed almost every child in the fictional town of Springwood. The only surviving teenager ‘John Doe’ (Shon Greenblatt) is confronted by Freddy in a dream and is accidentally knocked past the town’s limits. Freddy cannot follow away from the Springwood but realises that he’ll be able to find more prey if he can somehow escape its confines.

After hitting his head and suffering from Amnesia, John is taken to a youth shelter in a nearby town where he meets other troubled teens and psychologist named Maggie Borroughs (Lisa Zane, sister of Billy). Maggie later discovers she’s Freddy’s daughter who was adopted at a young age. When Freddy tries to use the connection they have to access other children, she and the teens must battle to stop the killer and put an end to his reign of terror for good. Maggie dons 3D glasses and enters the dreamworld of Freddy where she discovers his darkest secrets and discovers the source of his powers; a trio of ‘dream demons’ who prevent him from dying. She realises she must pull him into the real world if she is to inflict fatal damage.

The artwork on this poster is by Tongdee Panumas who was an incredibly prolific film poster artist during the 70s, 80s and 90s. I’ve been unable to find out much about him, other than that he was born in 1947, so if anyone has any more details please get in touch. The central image of Freddy and his glove is from the American one sheet, which can be viewed here.

Note that the dark line seen across the centre of the poster is actually where two painted canvases have been joined together by the artist – the art was then copied ready for printing and the text and other details overlaid.

During 1989, after four months of writing, the Coen Brothers experienced a period of difficulty in pulling the story together for their gangster-themed classic Miller’s Crossing and the pair decided to take a break. They traveled to New York from Los Angeles and during their stay there they penned a new script for a film set in a largely abandoned hotel in Los Angeles, with John Turturro in mind for the lead role. Once filming was complete on Miller’s Crossing the pair returned to the script and started to plan the production with the actor.

Set in 1941, the film follows the titular playwright (Turturro) who has seen great success with his recent play on Broadway and is persuaded by his agent that an offer from Capital Studios in Hollywood of a thousand dollars a week to write scripts is too good to pass up. Although Barton is worried that living there will make him lose his connection to the ‘common man’, which is what he feels give his plays their power, he reluctantly agrees and decides to stay at the almost empty Hotel Earle, rather than a more salubrious establishment. His room is dark, drab and devoid of any decoration save for a photograph of a woman in a bikini on a beach looking at the surf, which mesmerises Barton as he imagines the scene come to life.

Soon he meets the boss of Capital, Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), who promises him his total support and asks him to start off with writing a wrestling picture. Disappointed with the choice of subject, he returns to the Earle and sits down at his typewriter. Immediately he finds himself suffering writers block, a situation made worse by distracting sounds in the hotel and the appearance of his room neighbour, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), who introduces himself as a traveling salesman and tries to help Barton to get back on track. Later he meets a famous novelist called W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) who moved to Hollywood years before and has been writing scripts ever since, despite suffering from alcoholism and anger management issues. Mayhew’s long-suffering assistant, Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis) agrees to help with his script as the demands from Capitol grow stronger. After visiting his hotel room, Audrey and Barton spend the night together, but when he tries to wake her the next morning he finds that she’s been murdered and soon a pair of belligerent detectives appear in the lobby of the Earle.

The film clearly references a number of real characters from 1940s Hollywood but their characters are skewed just enough that it’s not libellous, and the ‘Sources, inspirations and allusions’ section on the film’s Wikipedia page gives a good rundown of the recipe for the Coens’ script. Barton Fink was a huge critical success and was the first film to win the Palme d’Or, Best Director and Best Actor at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, critical success didn’t translate into box-office performance and the film apparently failed to recoup its production budget.

This one sheet was created by the prolific poster design team at Concept Arts. They started out in London in 1972 working on printed material for film releases in the UK before eventually opening an office in Hollywood from where they still work today. Their official website can be seen here and indicates that they’ve diversified to also include digital, AV and social media campaigns. The gallery of their work on IMPAwards is very impressive and features 613 posters! To see the other Concept Arts posters I’ve collected click here.