There are good years for film, and then there are good years for film press tours. Right now, we’re living through a blessed combination of the two. The latter is largely driven by Marty Supreme lead Timothée Chalamet’s relentless publicity stunts on behalf of his project, which include ping-pong humanoids, staged Zoom calls, and features on the tracks of obscure British rappers.
One also can’t overlook Sinners director Ryan Coogler’s contributions to the conversation. Over the last few months, he’s delighted audiences with such tidbits as, “I’m not a big soda person, but when they started to let you mix and match the drinks… I got involved with that,” while speaking on podcasts and talk shows about the movie-going experience.
When the Oscars air on March 15, we’ll have officially bid farewell to these tours, and with them, the unbridled absurdity that arises as teams volley for last-minute standing with Academy voters. To get us through until the next cycle, we’re reminiscing on our favorite moments from the past two decades when all hell broke loose on the road to awards season.
War of the Worlds, 2005
Who didn’t Tom Cruise concern and/or piss off during his 2005 promotion of this Steven Spielberg sci-fi flick? Infamously, he jumped up on Oprah’s couch to declare his love for Katie Holmes, a relatively tame stunt by today’s standards, but an ominous forbearer of the couple’s eventual demise nonetheless. (Holmes allegedly later used burner phones to plot her divorce and take her then 6-year-old daughter away from Cruise’s life in Scientology.) The actor also went over to the Today show, where he engaged in an outright hostile interview with Matt Lauer, declaring that psychiatry was a pseudo-science and bashing Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants to combat postpartum depression. Undoubtedly the start of a problematic streak in Cruise moviegoers would collectively choose to ignore for the next 20 years.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, 2005
It’s the film that saw Brad and Jen become Brangelina. While filming this early aughts spy caper, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fell in love on- and off-screen, despite the former’s marriage to Jennifer Aniston. The torrid triangle would go on to drive sales of tabloids for the next two decades, but it also made for an awkward promotional run, as Aniston had filed for divorce just two months prior to the film’s release, and Pitt joined Jolie to adopt her second child just one month later. Unfortunately, the now ex-couple’s relationship has gotten no less attention-grabbing as the years wear on.
Two Lovers, 2008
This one is a bit of a trick entry, as the press tour for the Joaquin Phoenix-led Two Lovers was completely taken over by publicity stunts for his next project, the Casey Affleck-directed I’m Still Here. While promoting Two Lovers, Phoenix began showing up to interviews with bedraggled hair and dark shades, pronouncing that he was leaving acting to become a hip hop artist and otherwise seemingly decidedly unwell. It was later revealed that he was in character for Affleck’s 2010 mockumentary following the same premise. The poorly rated film contains no small dose of nudity, drugs, defecation, and sex—it also got Affleck slapped with a sexual harassment and breach of contract suit that outlined the untenable workplace atmosphere created by the project’s lead creatives.
Water for Elephants, 2011
Water for Elephants is the film that elevated Robert Pattinson’s press tour antics from delightfully unexpected to pathologically unhinged. While promoting the project, which follows the workers at a traveling circus, he relayed his one and only trip to the show in detail on the Today show, saying, “The first time I went to see the circus, somebody died. One of the clown’s … little cars exploded. Seriously. Everybody ran out. It was terrifying.” Rabid news articles and fan outcry followed. Then, a week later, he told a German journalist, “I actually made the whole thing up.” Pattinson has only become an increasingly unreliable narrator since, telling the press that he took his stalker out to dinner, dealt drugs in high school, and had an alternate career as a hand model. Are any of these stories based in fact? Who knows.
Kick-Ass 2, 2013
Right at the top of the list of “things that can go wrong before my movie’s release,” would have to be “my own actor starts campaigning against the film.” Unfortunately, director Jeff Wadlow experienced such a thing firsthand when, two months before Kick-Ass 2 hit theaters, Jim Carey took to Twitter to denounce the project. “I did Kick-Ass a month before Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence,” he wrote. “I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.” While the actor’s sentiments are admirable, one has to wonder what he expected from the sequel to 2010’s “kids beat everyone up and shoot things” extravaganza.
The Interview, 2014
The very next thing on that list of “things that can go wrong,” has to be “North Korea starts campaigning against the film.” In 2014, ahead of the release of Seth Rogen and James Franco’s The Interview, hackers leaked correspondence between the foreign government and Sony detailing demands to pull the film, which depicts Kim Jong Un as a bumbling leader meeting a comedic end. Under duress and fear of theaters being targeted with violence, the company did just that, circling back at the end of the year with a limited theatrical and rental run. The North Korean National Defense Commission accused President Obama of forcing Sony to release the project. Who was really behind the many power moves and diversions of getting the film to (a few) theaters? Rogen says he still doesn’t know.
Don’t Worry Darling, 2022
There are few modern disasters quite as spectacularly entertaining as the Don’t Worry Darling press tour. Rumors began swirling when Shia LaBeouf spoke to Variety about exiting the project and being replaced by Harry Styles, who went on to date director Olivia Wilde. She was in the midst of a messy divorce from Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis that included being served child custody papers onstage at CinemaCon while promoting the film. Wilde attested to reporters that she had fired LaBeouf for bad behavior; he alleged that she had begged him to stay. For reasons still unknown, but wildly speculated over, Wilde and lead Florence Pugh then fell out. In one famous turn, Pugh declined to attend the press panel of the film’s premiere in Venice, only to film herself laughing with an Aperol Spritz in hand while her costars fielded questions. Wilde, Styles, and Pugh then fastidiously ignored each other on the red carpet, buffered by an affable Chris Pine, who many still believe was spit on by Styles due to a badly angled fan clip. Poor Wilde—toxic ex-husband, toxic ex-employee, current employee making your job hell, unconscionably famous boyfriend whose fans are trying to ruin your life—one woman can only handle so much.
It Ends With Us, 2024
It Ends With Us should have been a bankable, but forgettable, Colleen Hoover adaptation. Instead, it’s the origin of a still-ongoing legal battle liable to destroy multiple careers. The story centers on a florist (Blake Lively) and her abusive ex (lead and director Justin Baldoni). The press tour was a rough outing for Lively, who was slandered across social media for her tone deaf approach to the issue’s themes and using the film to promote her new haircare line. Following the release, Lively filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and smear tactics, providing evidence that Baldoni had been inappropriate on set and that his team was behind the hate campaign sweeping social media and tabloids. In response, Baldoni filed a sweep of defamation suits—his $400 million suit against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, has since been dismissed. While the success of Lively’s case remains to be seen, it’s unlikely either her or Baldoni will fully recover from the reputational damage swung in each other’s directions.
Wicked: Parts 1 and 2, 2024 and 2025
For its film adaptation, Wicked was split into two films released year-over-year, and both sparked headlines for the sheer oddity of their promotion. Much of the headlines were driven by leads Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s sudden, all-consuming, matching-tattoo cemented friendship, as well as Grande’s relationship with the Tin Man, mere moments after his then-wife had given birth to their first child. On the first press tour, Erivo and Grande memorably talked about “holding space” for “Defying Gravity” while Grande held a single finger on Erivo’s hand. This was one of the few interviews where the pair didn’t shed tears. When the pair returned for round two, they went viral again for getting into a physical altercation with a fan who burst through security at a red carpet and lunged at Grande. There were also more tears, more intense and slightly bizarre declarations of friendship between Grande and Erivo, and a statement from the former saying that the repeated labeling of the group as “cringe” was “just so unfair.”
Marty Supreme, 2025
In the lead-up to the Josh Safdie film’s release, Timothée Chalamet seemed to take it upon himself to enact the entire marketing campaign for the project, saying he wanted to bring fans back to theaters and was “trying to get this out in the biggest way possible.” Chalamet started out by having men with orange ping-pong ball heads follow him to press appearances. He then began handing out Marty Supreme jackets to a variety of celebs, including Susan Boyle and Tom Brady. He faked a Zoom call with the film’s marketing team, pitching increasingly crazy ideas like flying an orange blimp. After fan speculation that he was secretly moonlighting as indie British rapper EsDeeKid, Chalamet flew across the pond to drop a Marty-related verse on one of the musician’s songs. He also jetted off to Vegas to stand atop the Sphere, appropriately turned orange like one of the film’s iconic ping-pong balls. On March 15, we’ll see whether the actor’s relentless drive earns him or his film one of the night’s biggest awards.
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