LOS ANGELES (AP) – Clad in his pajamas, Reid Jones often blogs about Marvel superhero movies, with starry ambitions of one day becoming an entertainment journalist.
A few weeks ago, the 16-year-old woke up to that opportunity when he was invited to conduct red carpet interviews with the stars of Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” during the Los Angeles premiere.
“It really felt like it was a dream,” says Jones, who traveled with his dad from Kennesaw, Ga., to the premiere of the movie that hits theaters Friday.
Major Hollywood studios like Disney-owned Marvel are anxious to win over super fans, especially those who help build excitement online among other youngsters ahead of a movie’s debut. While the fan connection has long been cultivated at conventions like Comic-Con or Disney’s Star Wars Celebration, young writers like Jones – whose posts have been read nearly 11 million times – are increasingly being courted at events once reserved for traditional media outlets.
This outreach is important for marketers, who call people like Jones “influencers” because they reach an under-25 crowd of frequent moviegoers, who are not as easily reached by the traditional 30-second TV ads that advertisers typically use to reach their parents. Fading are the days when movie critics at newspapers, magazines and other publications set the tone, particularly for the big-budget superhero movies that can make or break a studio’s annual revenue target.