The Noel Marshall Madness of 1981

"What? No! Are you crazy?"

That's how I imagined people responded when Noel Marshall offered them the male lead for his 1981 film Roar.

Noel Marshall had to be the male lead because no one wanted the role.

Why?

Roar was a movie about a family trapped in a house with wild animals.

And since this was before CGI was a thing…

They decided to use actual lions and tigers, not costumes.

No, not trained domestic big cats…

I'm talking about untamed lions.

(Go big or go home, kids.)

It's like getting a pet mouse in a house filled with Siamese cats… having humans and wild lions around each other doesn't scream "best idea ever."

That's because things are bound to happen.

Things like:

Melanie Griffith is being mauled near the eye.

The cinematographer having his scalp torn off.

Noel Marshall is being mauled repeatedly.

And Emil, your pet mouse, is nowhere to be found.

"umm, is that blood stain on my cat's paws?"

Now, let's look beyond the balls of the cast and crew.

Maybe it's just me, but…

… that's a pure show of belief.

Nothing says "I believe this movie will be a success" than someone willing to be around wild lions to be a part of the movie.

What if the 350-pound cat got curious and wanted to taste a piece of that moisturized skin?

And in the end…

The movie was a dud.

Yup. Roar could have done better at the box office.

If anything, this proves William Goldman was right when he said:

“Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work”

Sure, it's not a toss of a coin.

They know what "should" work, but no one's 100 percent sure.

Before Roar, Noel Marshall produced the hit movie The Exorcist.

Yet Roar was a dud.

See, no one knows for sure.

Not Noel Marshall, not William Goldman, and certainly not marketing maestros like Gary Halbert, who've worked on campaigns that ended up being a dud.

It even happens with email lists.

Every email list has its unique feel.

What worked well for one list may not work as much for another.

This is why you have to email your list consistently.

… To show up every day.

And keep testing different strategies to see how your list reacts.

This gives you an idea of what's likely to work and what won't.

Sure, some ideas won't work, but you'll do better than business owners who don't mail their lists consistently.