The Combo poster is very popular in the
UK. It's almost always a Quad size that is used for the combo.
British Combo posters are a lot different
than combo posters issued in the US... for example: when
Combo posters are issued in America, some B films are issued in combo to
secondary markets..... BUT when a major film title is involved, they are
always a reissue. This is NOT the case for British Combo posters
Quite often a single quad would be issued
for the major cities, then when the film was released in the rural areas,
it would be released with a secondary film and combo posters issued. This
would be the initial release for those theaters but only have combo posters
available.
This system of distribution has created
some unique problems in the collectors market. Because of the 
marketing
strategy of issuing first run films in rural areas and only issuing combo
posters, you have a common occurance of SOME quad combo posters being cut
in half by theater managers because they only wish to show ONE of the 2
releases but only have the combo posters available. NOTE: the beautiful
Holy Grail double crown on the left is actually a cut Quad Combo. This would
be equivilent to an American theater cutting a one sheet combo down the
middle to try to create an Insert. (not to say that this has never been
tried by a small theater manager). The difference is that in the UK, it
is quite common because of the lack of optional materials....
The layout of combo posters vary, of course,
from one promotion to the other. A major film shown with a lot smaller release
would have a combo poster produced where the major film was most of the
poster and the minor release could just be a tag or a smaller piece of the
poster. Equal size films would normally produce equal space on the poster.
NOTE: A combo poster is normally 2 feature
films. A film released with a cartoon, short or featurette is NOT normally
considered a combo poster.
For more information, see our article on
the Unique problems in the British collectors market. Also see our article
on Double Crown posters.
Here's a look at the British
combo posters in our archive.
Back to Poster
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