Project Hail Mary

The work began where it always does: at the asset foundation. Carnival handled the careful localisation of Teaser and Launch key art (beautifully designed by Empire Design & BLT Communications) across portrait, quad, social and wide OOH formats, building simplified layered files structured to keep every downstream cinema partner, from Gold Class and IMAX to the indie circuit, strictly on-brand and everywhere.

From that foundation, we delivered 145 assets across every major touchpoint.

In-theatre marketing:
• a full Melbourne IMAX dress-out
• National in-theatre front-of-house sites
• Event Gold Class takeovers
• Reading Cinema large-format takeovers, and further in-theatre front-of-house assets

Out-of-home and digital networks:
• National Digital Large Format OOH and Street Furniture assets across JCDecaux, QMS, oOH Media and JOLT
• Innovative OOH takeovers with Melbourne’s landmark JCDecaux ICON site
• IMAX Sydney takeover formats

Premiere and preview event materials:
• National media walls with photo-op stands
• E-vites and holding slides ensured the campaign landed with equal impact at live touchpoints.

Precision Localisation at Scale
Our localisation process has been refined over 20+ years across more than 1,000 film campaigns, designed to deliver two outcomes without compromise:

Consistency from first asset to final placement
Campaign integrity is preserved at every stage – ensuring that creative intent, hierarchy and finish translate seamlessly across all formats and environments.

Effortless usability for every partner
Assets are structured for real-world deployment – giving cinemas, media partners and content teams the flexibility they need, without introducing complexity or risk.

International master materials are carefully ingested, localised and rebuilt for the Australian market – including rigorous QA, file optimisation, and simplified, production-ready packaging. Every asset is delivered clean, scalable, and immediately usable across print, digital and AV.

The result is a campaign ecosystem that moves smoothly through the market – no pushback, no rework, no compromises on quality. We do it once. And we do it right.

Turning Global Scale into Local Impact

Project Hail Mary arrived with a powerful international campaign, and its Australian performance was driven by how effectively that campaign was translated, deployed and experienced in-market. Through precise localisation and a disciplined rollout across key art localisations, Australia-wide OOH and in-theatre publicity and marketing, Carnival ensured the global creative landed with maximum clarity, consistency and impact.

Project Hail Mary had the biggest Australian opening weekend for a film this year, delivering 297,000 admissions and $6.89 million over its Thursday-to-Sunday debut, the biggest non-franchise movie opening since Oppenheimer.

With sincere thanks to our long-standing client, Sony Pictures, Mick at DEM Signage, and our production partner KDS Print Management.  International key art credits: Empire Design, BLT Communications