I was thinking to myself the other day, what happened to The Lovely Bones? Here in the UK we had the premiere on 24th November last year, so did I miss it? Was it on a limited run? And then I found out that it’s wasn’t due out until 15th January (or 19th February if you’re in the UK). Which seems like a hell of a long time to release something after a premiere.

So why the delay?

Variety have just done a report on the reason behind this delay, and while the obvious reason is to avoid releasing something at the same time as box office giant Avatar, the less obvious reason is because they wanted to appeal to the ‘Twihards’ (that’s a Twilight fan to you and me).

It seems The Lovely Bones initial target audience were older adults and literary fans. But after a few test screenings and a disappointing opening on Dec. 11th, they’ve don’t a complete 180 and marketed it instead at young teenage girls. More specifically, the type that would watch the Twilight films.

Apparently the films spiritual themes and father-daughter relationship were what younger females responded to most. So they’ve re-done their ad campaigns, and stuck the trailer onto the trailers for New Moon.

Now I’ve seen the trailer for The Lovely Bones and to be honest it didn’t really impress me that much, but thinking about it from a teenage girls perspective, I can kind of see the appeal.

Except I’m not a teenage girl, so fully expect it to be a huge disappointment.