Lucky

This was originally a self-initiated project by illustrator and designer Christopher Cox. Harry Dean Stanton was a personal favorite for years and he passed away on September 15th, Cox’s birthday, shortly after the release of his last film, ‘Lucky.’ The film served as a perfect farewell to a life lived with such zeal sprinkled with a little bit of zen. Stanton claimed to have never acted in any of his films or television roles. He was simply being Harry. How can you not love someone for that?

Saddened by his passing, Cox decided to create an alternative poster for his last film. The poster was noticed by the marketing department at Magnolia Pictures. It was even shown the director, John Carroll Lynch who is an amazing character actor in his own right. The portrayal of Stanton fading into dust like the ash from one of his beloved cigarettes apparently moved the director nearly to tears. Sadly, Magnolia rarely invests in alternative art to market their productions, primarily because they are a small indy-house studio with fixed budgets for marketing and PR.

Although the image failed to be used, it was still a small victory to witness the power of an image to penetrate the inner circle involved in the last production starring Mr. Stanton.

Two versions of the poster were created using a controlled color palette selected directly from stills of the film. A daytime and twilight variant were created.