The Men of Warrior

Book excerpt: Tim Palen is known throughout the movie marketing industry for his daring approaches to film promotion, most specifically his provocative one-sheet posters, many featuring his own photography. Examples of his work include the arresting imagery used to promote the Saw and Hostel horror franchises, and the iconic portraits he created on behalf of W, Precious, and For Colored Girls. As Paula Burr has written, Palen’s movie poster photography attempts "to boil [the image] down to the essence of the film. It is all about finding simplicity, a singular iconic image, something that evokes emotion.” The Men of Warrior gathers together Palen’s no-holds-barred shoot for the upcoming Lionsgate film Warrior, starring Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton as two brothers who face the fight of a lifetime in the high-stakes world of Mixed Martial Arts. In these pages, Hardy and Edgerton show off their hard-earned fighting bodies and bloodied upper lips, capturing the tough and dramatic world of Warrior in a series of iconic images, all of which are poster-worthy.