Anna Karenina Packaging

How is Anna Karenina packaged to appeal to a range of audiences and build upon past successes?

A wide and varied audience is essential in ensuring success in the film industry. Anna Karenina has been tactically packaged by Working Title to widen the audience and therefore increase profits and popularity by casting and contracting various cast and crew members from past successes, in a wide range of different genres.

The British film production company, Working Title, cover many different genres of film, such as historical dramas (Elizabeth), spoof comedies (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), romantic comedies (Love Actually, Bridget Jones) and are also known for producing literary adaptations, as Anna Karenina is. These various genres reach out to many different audiences, expanding the popularity and profits of the company.

Anna Karenina is a literary adaptation of the novel written by Leo Tolstoy, a Russian author well known for his ‘epic novels’. Adapting one of Tolstoy‘s novels would expand the audience to those in the older generation as his popular novel was published within the 19th Century; this older audience would be interested in seeing the adaptation and how this epic novel has been represented.

Joe Wright has worked with Working Title numerous times in the past, directing many successful films such as Pride and Prejudice and Atonement. Similar to Anna Karenina, many of his previous films have been successful literary adaptations (including the two mentioned), creating a stable, trustworthy relationship to develop between the director and production company. Being the director of such acknowledged productions, Wright has created somewhat of a name for his self within the film industry and has many followers of his work; it is because of this reputation and the relationship between the production company and director that Working Title chose to contract Wright as the director for yet another of their literary adaptations.

The writer of Anna Karenina is a British establishment play writer, Tom Stoppard. Stoppard has written many successful stage plays such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Arcadia for the theatre and has also written acknowledged films such as Shakespeare In Love. Including this playwright in the production of Anna Karenina makes the film more appealing to a literary audience, interested in Stoppard’s work.

Typical to the productions of Working Title, the three main roles are played by established British actors; Keira Knightly, Jude Law and Aaron Taylor Johnson. These actors tend to star in very different genres of film, tactfully casted for Anna Karenina to widen the attracted audience. Keira Knightly is a very successful actress, taking major roles in many films typical to the romantic genre, such as Atonement and Pride and Prejudice whilst also staring in romantic comedies such as Love Actually and Pirates of the Caribbean, giving her valuable experience and skill of acting in films similar to that of Anna Karenina. Many of the films the actress has been casted in have been directed by Joe Wright which has created a good working relationship between the two; this contributes to the reasoning for the contracting of both actress and director. Keira Knightly has a very large fan base from the wide variety of films she has taken part in and is widely seen as a very attractive figure for the younger generation, this sex appeal contributes to the casting for Anna Karenina.

Aaron Taylor Johnson is a British actor, previously starring in many comedy films such as Kickass and Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging. These productions are generally aimed at a younger audience, that and being an attractive man, has created a fan base of teenagers. By using this actor, the audience is widened to the younger generation, through familiarization and sex appeal.

Although not being hugely popular for his acting, Jude Law successfully aids in expanding the audience for Anna Karenina as he is well known by older or middle-aged woman for his attractiveness. The British actor has played a part in range of different films such as The Holiday (a romantic comedy), Sherlock Holmes (a mystery film) and Existenz (a sci-fi drama). This wide range of genres means that his name would be known to wide variety of people, this and his sex appeal to older women, add to the reasoning behind casting him for his role in Anna Karenina.

To conclude, Anna Karenina has been tactfully packaged by way of involving many different cast and crew members known to a wide variety of audiences and also uses actors, such as Keira Knightly, that have previously worked within successful Working Title productions. The director, Joe Wright, has also previously worked with Working Title and also has substantial relationships with several actors within the casting. Each director, writer, cast member and the like have been chosen from a wide variety of genres and different audiences in attempt to reach a maximum audience for the film.