Examining Typography in Movie Posters

After completing the Lupton reading and attending lecture this week I have gained a new understanding of the significance of typography in graphic arts. I have chosen to examine a few movie posters to discuss what the typography used means and how successful the artist was in choosing  particular typography for a message. Firstly, in the "Rambo" movie advertisement, the artist chose to use a font that appears like that of a stencil. The typography looks as if it has been spray painted. This was appropriate because the movie is a war movie. Real army gear is often labeled similarly, so by using this typography the artist is allowing the viewer to assume that the movie is about war. I find it interesting that Stallone's name is larger than the title of the movie. In class we have discussed how typography has hierarchy, and, in my opinion, I think the title of the movie is more important than the actor starring in it. However, because Sylvester Stallone is a very famous actor, the artist may have made his name larger than the title to grab the attention of his fans more easily. 

Secondly, I would like to compare two different movie posters for "The Dark Night".  In one poster, the artist uses a novelty font that appears to look like smudged blood to write the movie's ta

g line, "Why so serious?". Whereas the other poster used a very simple sans serif font to write the tag line of the movie. Both posters used the sans serif font the second poster used in the tag line for the title. In the poster that used the sans serif font for both the title and the tag line, the title appears larger than the tag line. However, in

 the other poster, the tag line which is in a novelty font is larger than the

 title. 

What reasons could the artist(s) have for designing each poster so differently? Does the hierarchy and typography used make one poster more or less appropriate from the other? Does the meaning/significance change because of the different hierarchies and typographies used?