Scour the Web and you can find any number of fan-produced mock movie posters—Google "'The Dark Knight' fan made posters"—and, although some are quite good, none have gained as much popularity as those produced by Matt Owen.
Rather than going overboard with Photoshop and special effects, Owen keeps his posters simple. Real simple. Following the model, less is more, he produces minimalist movie posters—a deconstruction of a film to its recognizable symbols (example: "Harry Potter" = Lightening bolt scar).
Owen, an Art Director from Little Rock, Arkansas, has been producing minimalist movie posters since 2010 as a side project.
"Call it a cure for boredom. I have always been a pretty big movie fan, (and admittedly a little obsessed with '80s movies)," Owen tells Business Insider. "I thought minimalism could be a fun way to convey something as big as a whole plot, or just give a shout out to a single funny moment in a film."
So far, he has produced over 80 original pieces. From horror flick "Psycho" to '80s teen flick "Breakfast Club," to Spielberg's "E.T.," Owen has covered a wide array of pop-culture favorites and Hollywood blockbusters.
After a friend suggested Owen turn his hobby into a blog, he created Brickhut. It wasn't long until his work began to gain attention from some pretty big fans in Hollywood.
"Over the past few months, I have gotten some pretty fun poster commissions from clients like Paramount Pictures and director Jason Reitman."
So much for a side project.
If you went to the midnight premiere of "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," or saw the film during its opening week, you may have been one of the lucky few to get one of Owen's latest creations. He produced two similar, but contrasting posters for Tom Cruises' highest-grossing blockbuster.
Galley1988 also commissioned Owen to produce a limited-edition "Young Adult" poster for viewers of an early Hollywood screening. Director Reitman ("Up in the Air") has also come out publicly as a fan.
"They're spectacular," said Reitman in an interview for "Young Adult." "He's one of the best out there. They're all so clever."
In the interview, Reitman admitted he didn't realize Owen previously produced a poster for one of his earlier films, "Thank You For Smoking."
So, how long do these posters take to create? According to Owen, most don't take long at all.
"Some of them can be done in just an hour or two," he says. "Others take a little longer, maybe a couple days. With most of these, the idea just hits me, and I get right to work on it."
Among his favorite creations? "Die Hard" and "A Clockwork Orange."
Owen currently sells his artwork online with posters and prints starting at $12.34.
However, for the popularity of his series, he doesn't hang any of them in his own home. He sticks to collecting original movie posters.
Currently, Owen is working on another "fun project." Unfortunately, he couldn't share which, but we cannot wait to see.
He joked, "I would love to talk about it, but I have been warned not to, under penalty of death."
"Big"
"There Will Be Blood"
Owen's limited-edition "Young Adult" poster given out in Los Angeles.
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